Valve leakage

Hi

Have had a rough couple of weeks since last post. I saw the cardiologist and he has now heard a murmur. He asked me if this had ever been mentioned and only once 30 years ago when I was having my daughter in hospital was this mentioned. Since then I have had three echograms and not once did anyone say about murmur.

I then had an echogram two days after seeing the cardiologist and this showed a slight leak in heart valve. Told not to worry but needless to say I am already climbing the walls.

This was followed by a 24 hour monitor and as usual my heart behaved itself so do not think anything will be abnormal on the trace.

On the 20th of this month I am due an exercise test and then the results to let me know what is happening.

My question is could a pacemaker cause a leak in the heart valve or was this something that has just been there?

Anyone else out there suffering the same.

Julie

4 Comments

This is Edouard's wife

by Edouard - 2010-10-05 04:10:54

Hi Julie. I am Edouard's wife and have learned a lot about heart valves since I had a mitral valve repair. You do not say which valve is involved. A pacemaker can cause a slight leak of the tricuspid valve since the lead that goes to the right ventricle has to pass through the tricuspid valve.

However, do NOT worry about a SLIGHT leak, no matter which valve is involved. If they did an echo on the whole population, probably half the population would have a slight leak.

For your own information, I would get a copy of the echo report to see the details.

ditto what Edouard's wife said

by Tracey_E - 2010-10-05 06:10:41

Most of the population has leaks and never knows it! We get too much information sometimes because we get checked a lot more carefully than most of the population. Having a pm by definition gives us a small tricuspid leak because we have a lead in there preventing the valve from closing the whole way. Also, the heart is a moving, working muscle, so sometimes a minor leak will show up one time but not the next. Sometimes they go away and don't come back or they can come and go- it's normal! I've had 3 or 4 come and go over the years since my first echo in the mid 70's. Don't sweat this one! It sounds like your dr is being thorough but but odds are very high it's nothing.

Thanks for the imput

by Jules - 2010-10-06 03:10:19

Thanks for that. I think I am more worred as my father in law who also had a pacemaker has just passed. He was having a new one installed and the wires taken out and something went tragically wrong and he died.

Added to that my own father died at my age with heart disease.

So thanks for all imput and yes my cardiologist is being thorough. One more test to go.

different

by Tracey_E - 2010-10-08 04:10:47

I'm so sorry about your father in law and father! Know that what happened to your fil is very rare. As your family so sadly learned, things can still go wrong, but lead extraction is nowhere near the high risk procedure it was a few years back, technology has come a long way and it's safer every year. There's no reason to think the same thing would ever happen to you, it would be like getting struck by lightening twice. Ditto your father's situation. You have an electrical problem which generally means we have structurally healthy hearts with a short circuit (which is fixed by the pm). I totally get that you're afraid and nervous about the unknown, but the best analogy I can think of is being afraid to get in a plane because someone you know died in a car crash- your situation and both your father and fil is apples and oranges. I hope all your tests come back normal and you can rest easy again! I've had the gamut of heart tests over the years and I can tell you that a murmur is at the very bottom of the list of things to worry about. {{{hugs}}}

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