@jerrykdb- Welcome to Mayo Connect. This has to be very scary for you. When your heart can't pump enough blood around the body in order to make sure that your body works properly. This also makes it very hard for your other organs to work properly. Less blood to your kidneys causes fluid and water retention. You can have in swollen ankles, legs, abdomen (called edema), and weight gain. Symptoms may cause an increased need to urinate during the night. This is also why you have excess phlegm, a build-up of fluid around your lungs and in your chest. Have you undergone any procedures to have the liquid removed? Pleural infusion is one such procedure.

@jerrykdb, Hi, Jerry, I have asthma and chronic bronchitis so am on oxygen at night. My pulmonologist suggested that I restrict my dairy intake which was hard for me initially because I love all things dairy. However, restricting dairy has resulted in much less coughing and mucus production for me.

As @merpreb, posted, it is scary not to be able to breathe as well as we once did. However, Merry's information was so helpful to me and I hope to you as well. I have no medical background but a friend had the pleural infusion procedure and reported excellent results. I hope you will seek some medical relief for your symptoms and report back on how you are doing.