Types and Symptoms Of Heart Valve Disease

Author: Judy Wellsworth

There are two types of heart valve disease--heart disease resulting from narrowed heart valves, and heart disease resulting from leaky heart valves. Each of them stems from several different causes, ranging from birth defects, to bacterial infection, to aging.

Congential Heart Valve Disease

Congenital heart valve is the most common, and can result in inflexible or narrowed, or floppy, valves, or irregular valve flaps. Congenital heart valve disease is often diagnosed within a few days of a baby's birth, but if the defect is minor, may not be discovered until much later. Heart valve disease can be very hard to diagnose because some forms of it do not produce symptoms.

Some people, however, acquire heart valve disease because of complications from another disease such as heart muscle disease, coronary artery disease and heart attack. A child who has suffered from a rheumatic heart disease because of a simple strep throat will likely to have a valvular disease when he or she reaches adulthood.

Heart valve disease, however, can also develop as a complication from some other illness; children who have had rheumatic fever following an untreated case of strep throat have a greater than fifty percent chance of developing scarring on their heart valves. A heart with scarred valves has to work harder than one with smooth ones, and as the years mount, the extra strain on the heart can lead to rheumatic heart disease.

Endiocarditis

Another form of heart valve disease which can result from infection is endiocarditis. Endiocarditis develops when bacteria enters the bloodstream during surgery or dental procedures, causing inflammation of the heart and scarring both its valves and leaflets. In the case of endiocarditis, the scarred leaflets will allow blood entering the heart to back up, or "regurgitate," diminishing the blood volume within the heart and the amount of blood and oxygen which reaches the body's other organs.

The elderly are susceptible to heart valve disease resulting from calcification, or calcium deposit buildup, along the valves.

Testing For Heart Valve Disease

Echocardiograms

and MRIs are the tests best suited to diagnose heart valve disease. Either one will give the cardiologist a good look at abnormalities both in the main chambers of the heart and all its smaller structures including the valves.

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Symptoms of heart valve disease can include vertigo resulting from a quick shift of positions, such as standing up or sitting, heart palpitations or racing, shortness of breath after minimal activity, and sever afternoon fatigue.

Those experiencing any of these symptoms on a regular basis should arrange to see a cardiologist and be tested for a heart murmurs, a strong indication of heart valve disease.

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tags:Congenital Heart Defects,Heart Diseases,Heart valve Diseases

Heart Disease Treatment: What Options Are Available

Author: Saul Peterson

There are many forms of heart disease including ischemic heart disease (plaque-blocked arteries), congenital conditions, arrhythmia, and diseases of the actual heart muscle. Whether heart disease is detected early or not revealed until after heart failure, there are now available to doctors and medical professionals many differing remedies and treatments to reduce the risks of further heart disease. Very basically there are three categories of heart disease treatment.

Just keep taking the tablets!!

When a heart beats too quickly, or if the arteries around it contract tightly, the heart will be overtaxed, like revving an engine that's in park, which, long term can result in damage to the heart muscle. Doctors prescribe three classes of pills called nitrates, beta blockers, and calcium channel blockers to enable the heart to run more efficiently. Each of these types of heart disease treatments help the heart to beat regularly and slowly, or expand the arteries in the area of the heart so that blood flow to the heart muscle is more efficient.

Surely everyone these days knows that Aspirin thins the blood and reduces the risk of blood clots forming, causing blocked arteries. Aspirin does diminish the blood's ability to form clots, as do Heparin and Warfarin, other drugs fight cholesterol, which can form plaque in the arteries (ischemic heart disease) and lead to heart failure. These drugs are usually called cholesterol reducing drugs or are part of a subcategory called 'statins'.

As always, if your doctor prescribes medicine, don't forget to ask plenty of questions about what the drug is and what it does, including any possible side effects.

Scalpel, Please!!

When clogged caronary arteries are life threatening, heart disease treatment can mean going into surgery. Some surgeries will clear the plaque in the arteries by cleaning or grinding it away or inflating a balloon (angioplasty) in the arteries to break up the plaque. During bypass surgery a large blood vessel will be taken from elsewhere in the body and grafted to the blocked artery so blood can pass around the blockage to the heart.

Surgeries for other conditions include implanting a pacemaker into the heart to treat arrhythmia, and doctors can transplant aortic valves into a patient whose valve has stopped functioning properly. In case no heart disease treatment is possible, such as in infants born with heart defects, artificial hearts do exist, though they are only a temporary solution until a heart transplant can be performed.

Treat The Whole System!!

Of course, before your heart gets desperate enough to need drugs or surgery, look to the risk factors you can control. Don't smoke; control your cholesterol as best as possible so that plaque never gets a chance to clog your arteries, although the body produces cholesterol itself so in some cases tight control of your cholesterol level is extremely difficult; and exercise regularly, most days in a week, to keep your heart muscles healthy. Hopefully if you undertake these simple steps, heart disease treatment will be for other people, not you.

For a free e-book, more articles and information about heart disease please visit http://www.a1toparticles.com/heart.html/

About the author:
Saul Peterson has suffered heart

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failure and disease for over 10 years - having numerous operations during this time - he knows heart disease first-hand

tags:Congenital Heart Defects,Heart Diseases