Heart murmurs . . . . need info PLEASE

[Mickey's sunshine]

Anyone have experience with them or had them? Anyone been told you may have one and then when further tests were done you did not? Any info would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!

 

[Microcell]

DD was born with one, and the doc said that the vast majority correct themselves. It is a "woosh" that the doc can hear, and in DD's case it was slight murmur, and has apparently resolved itself, as no doctor has commented on it since she was three, and say they don't hear one when pressed. I may take her back to that doc that first diagnosed it to be sure, but she is the one who told me the majority resolve.

 

[Mom2Ashli]

My DD was born with one. It was supposed to correct itself but she is 6 and it is still there. We just went to the Ped. Cardio. and had a bunch of tests run. They will just continue to keep their eye on it.

 

[Tiggeroo]

ds has one. it was thought it would correct itself too. it's very slight and dr tells us no worries. this son is a distance runner doing 100 miles per week. I had dr do an extra thorough exam including an echocardiogram before he started college track this year.

 

[monarchsfan16]

My friend still has one. The majority do correct themselves, but she's 18 and her's has not. She's living a perfectly normal life though; you'd never know there was anything wrong with her. She does have to wear a monitor each year for a day or two, to make sure that it hasn't gotten worse.

 

[SnowAngel]

I have a minor heart mumur. I have had it all my life and is caused by tricuspid valve prolapse. I even joined the military with it and has never caused any problems.

Heartcenter online....
A heart murmur is an abnormal heart sound that results from the turbulent flow of blood through the heart. Heart murmurs are usually detected by a physician using a stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat. Most heart murmurs are harmless or “innocent,” which means they are not associated with a disease or condition of the heart. Many, if not most, children will have a heart murmur at some point in their lives.

However, heart murmurs may also be the result of an underlying heart condition, such as the narrowing of one of the heart’s four valves (valvular stenosis) or heart disease that has been present from birth (congenital heart disease).

The underlying cause of a heart murmur is usually diagnosed through painless tests such as an echocardiogram blood tests and (if necessary) a minimally invasive test such as a cardiac catheterization. A treatment plan will be designed based on the underlying condition.

 

[aprilgail2]

Are you talking about a kid or an adult....I have one that I did not have as a kid...I never had it in fact until I got pregnant, then it showed up. They are not doing anything about it...I have had a monitor thing that I wore for 14 days at home and also a stress test, echos once a year, ekgs' every 6 months

 

[Mickey's sunshine]

Thanks everyone.

This would be a child, my niece who is in the picture in my signature. She is 5 months old today and was a preemie (11 weeks). I would think they should have noticed something when in the NICU for 6 weeks being hooked up to monitors 24/7. Who knows though.

Thank you ALL for your replies!

 

[Disney Doll]

I was born with a heart murmur due to an Atril Septal Defect. Had Open Heart Surgery at age 7 (in 1969) to correct it, since it didn't close on its own, as many do. I had an opening in my heart (where there wasn't supposed to be one!) that was about the size of a quarter.

I have had no ill effects from it, have led a perfectly normal life, played sports, participated in normal activities. I am currently 43 years old, so it is now 36 years ago.

 

[JenDaveBrendan]

I was diagnosed with a heart murmur at 13 years old - I was having alot of chest pain so my mom brought me to a cardiologist. I have mitral valve prolapse (floppy valve) and mitral regurgitation (blood backwashes into the valve). I am very symptomatic if not taking meds (chest pain/tachycardia/palpitations), but not everyone is with this type of murmur. Mine always shows up in testing and doctors can always hear it when listening to my heart. However, my husband has a heart murmur also (something with the bicuspid valve- diagnosed as a baby) and his shows up off and on during echocardiograms (US of heart). Sometimes he has it and sometimes he doesn't (my guess is the experience on the radiologist who is reading it????) It is really weird.
We both see the same cardiologist every 6 months, along with my mom who has the same thing as me, and my dad who has an arrythmia(sp?). He is busy with our family. The heart issues in my family really worry me. My dad almost died from his condition.
My guess is any future children DH and I have will have a heart murmur also, due to our history.... so I would always be on the lookout.

 

[Mrs.Milo]

Hopefully since it's just now shown up it's one she'll outgrow.

 

[BrinxFam]

DD15 was born with a VSD...surgically closed at almost 5 yrs. old. Had no real problem before surgery except being very small and tired. No problems now at all.

My mom was diagnosed as a small child with an ASD. Activity was extremely restricted as a child. Also had mitro valve prolapse. Due to these two things she developed a leaky valve and underwent open heart surgery in 1999. She is doing great now...had her55th b-day in Sept. Does things now she couldn't do when she was a kid, favorite is riding RnR with my DD15. It's kinda celebratory for them I guess.

 

[Aidensmom]

I was diagnosed with a heart murmur at 13 years old - I was having alot of chest pain so my mom brought me to a cardiologist. I have mitral valve prolapse (floppy valve) and mitral regurgitation (blood backwashes into the valve). I am very symptomatic if not taking meds (chest pain/tachycardia/palpitations), but not everyone is with this type of murmur. Mine always shows up in testing and doctors can always hear it when listening to my heart. However, my husband has a heart murmur also (something with the bicuspid valve- diagnosed as a baby) and his shows up off and on during echocardiograms (US of heart). Sometimes he has it and sometimes he doesn't (my guess is the experience on the radiologist who is reading it????) It is really weird.
We both see the same cardiologist every 6 months, along with my mom who has the same thing as me, and my dad who has an arrythmia(sp?). He is busy with our family. The heart issues in my family really worry me. My dad almost died from his condition.
My guess is any future children DH and I have will have a heart murmur also, due to our history.... so I would always be on the lookout.

I have the same thing, discovered when I was 17. However, mine is sometimes hard to detect, and I only have the symptoms described above occasionally. I am also chronically anemic, and for whatever reason, it is more detectable when my red blood cell count is low.

 

[JVL1018]

My son has a heart murmur and had an atrial septal defect(hole in between the upper chambers). The ped heard the murmur at his 1 yr appt and said did I ever tell you he has a hole in his heart? @@ No..
Anyway..in October(he's 4 now) he had it closed(no open heart surgery needed-they threaded a catheter though a vein in his groin and put the device to close it in that way. Took about an hour and a half, he was in the hospital for a total of about 24 hours)
Nno problems before or after the procedure. He's just a *tad* more energetic than before.
Many times a heart murmur is just a heart murmur. My son had no restrictions before his hole was closed, and has no restrictions now, even if the murmur is still there.

 

[NMAmy]

I had a heart murmur as a child that corrected itself--It did come back when I was about 13 and going through puberty. Apparently, it was something to do with the way I was growing so quickly--but that corrected itself as well. My dr says she can still hear a faint whoosh but it's nothing to worry about. I've never had any restrictions--I never knew I'd had it until I was a teenager. My mom says the dr didn't give me any restrictions--he just told my mom that I might not be as active as my sister (and I wasn't) but that I could do anything I had the desire to do.

 

[mickeyboat]

I had a murmur as a child which has corrected itself. My mom worked for a cardiologist and insisted on a complete cardiovascular work-up when I was in high school. I was AOK. I doubt any insurance company would approve that today! LOL.

Denae

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Thanks everyone.

This would be a child, my niece who is in the picture in my signature. She is 5 months old today and was a preemie (11 weeks). I would think they should have noticed something when in the NICU for 6 weeks being hooked up to monitors 24/7. Who knows though.

Thank you ALL for your replies!

Lots of experience in this dept....(I have a murmur when pregnant, dh has MVP, dd born with life threatening heart defect, younger dd has heart murmur, nephew born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (no left heart)...

You would think they would have noticed, right? This is why I tell people to go to pediatric cardiologist, a good one. It takes an experienced "ear" to hear the murmur.

Yes, they will miss it. Scary, isn't it? They also miss it it in ER's...even scarier. (Jerks almost killed my dd more than once.)

I lived through the "scary" and understand it now.

 

[mickeyboat]

Thanks everyone.

This would be a child, my niece who is in the picture in my signature. She is 5 months old today and was a preemie (11 weeks). I would think they should have noticed something when in the NICU for 6 weeks being hooked up to monitors 24/7. Who knows though.

Thank you ALL for your replies!

I am NOT an expert, but I have a thought. I wonder if they did notice it, but felt it wasn't a threat to her and would close up on its own, especially since she was a premie and hadn't "cooked" long enough, anyway.

Now they mention it because it has not cleared up on its own and they think they need to monitor it more closely or take action.

Good throughts that everything turns out well.

Denae

 

[CheshireVal]

I was born with a heart murmur, and as recently as my early 20s, a doctor said he could still hear it. However, when I had to go to a cardiologist about 5 years later for constant chest pain, they said they could detect no murmur at all anymore.

 

[RachelEllen]

Hi,

This is mine of line of work, so I'll try to be helpful.

A heart murmur is an abnormal 'whooshing' sound that you hear when you listen to the heart. Blood normally flows smoothly through the heart. If something causes it to become turbulent, you hear a murmur.

That being said, the variety of things that can cause the blood to flow in a turbulent way are so varied, (as you can already see from the previous responses) that there's really no way to know what's going on with your neice without any other information. They range from actual defects in the heart, to benign murmurs caused by nothing more than the angle blood takes in that particular heart.

There are some generalizations I can give you. /Most/ (not all, but by far most) murmurs in kids are benign. In fact, more babies than not will have a passing murmur in the first few days of life and the heart switches from it's in utero to ex utero configuration. Many murmurs come and go. For example, if it's caused by the blood flowing through an abnormally tight valve, you may not hear it when the blood is flowing slowly. But when the blood flows faster, if the heart is racing, for example, you may hear it. Many murmurs will also show up as babies get older. Perhaps that's why the murmur wasn't there in the NICU. The blood pressure in babies lungs decreases over the first severeal months, so sometimes if there's an abnormal pathway, the blood won't start flowing in that direction for a while.

If your neice was that premature, there's a good possibility she had an echocardiogram in the ICU for other reasons.

Hope that all makes sense. It's a really, really broad question.