Diuretics prevent your body from retaining fluid. This may cause you to frequent the bathroom, but it will prevent your legs or abdomen from swelling as an effect of cardiomyopathy. Even more importantly, diuretics will prevent fluid from building up in your lungs.
Sometimes in cases of restrictive cardiomyopathy, diuretics can negatively affect the amount of blood the heart receives, so talk to your doctor first.
Diuretics treat cardiomyopathy by helping remove extra fluid from the body. Cardiomyopathy is when the heart becomes enlarged. When the heart is enlarged, it becomes a less-effective pump, so more blood sits around in the heart and the blood can back up. When blood backs up, the rest of the body has to absorb that extra fluid and it commonly causes swelling in the legs. This extra fluid can also sit around the lungs making it hard to breathe. Diuretics are a class of medications that cause the kidneys to make more urine so the person urinates the extra fluid out of the body. This helps the heart pump a little better and it can help relieve some of the symptoms affiliated with an enlarged heart.
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