What is the difference between left heart failure and right heart failure?

Left and right heart: Left heart failure reduces the ability of the heart to pump bold to the body. It is mainly caused by chronic hypertension, coronary artery disease or valve disease. It causes fliuid to build up in lungs. Right heart failure is the inability to pump blood to the lungs. It is mainly caused by lung disease or by pressure in lungs from left heart failure. Fluid then builds up in the bodies veins.

See below: When the left heart fails, the lungs become congested and the most prominent symptom is breathlessness. When the right heart fails, all other organs except the lungs become congested and it is not unusual to get fluid in the liver, back, genitalia, and legs. Very often, the 2 are present together with all of the above and fluid in the pleural spaces and abdomen as well.

Overlap: Left ventricle- left heart with pulmonary edema and congestion right ventricle venous congestion dropsy peripheral edema when one side has issues the other develops issues but one set of symptoms may be first or more obvious heart attacks, valvular disease, viral cardiomyopathy can lead to such situations.

R/L heart failure: Right heart (right ventricle and atrium) failure typically has dependent edema, liver enlargement and increased jugular venous pulsations. Left heart (left ventricle and atrium) failure typically manifests with pulmonary edema. You can even have a combination of the two. This classification is not used as much. We have a systolic, a diastolic and mixed heart failure- this is the most used.