Right sided heart failure happens when the right side of the heart is unable to pump an adequate amount of blood to the lungs and out of the right side of the heart. This either happens because the hearts muscles are unable to fully contract or they are inflamed not allowing an adequate amount of blood to enter them. This leads to a backup in venous blood. The venous blood puts pressure on the walls of the blood vessels (especially in the legs). This causes blood plasma to leak into the interstitial spaces. This causes one of the major signs of right sided heart failure which is pitting edema of the legs. But, the fluid back up does not only cause edema. The failure of the right side of the heart to load sends a smaller amount of blood to the
