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Advertising in The Jewish News Gets Results
Place Your Ad Today. Call 354.6060
J
Leaky Heart Valve
A Sign Of Danger
MARSHALL FRANKLIN, M.D. SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
E
Let one of our certified
consultants help you.
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sther has had a heart mur-
mur since she was a teen-
ager. Doctors told her it was
caused by a leaking valve,
but this didn't keep her from liv-
ing a normal life. Her only pre-
caution was to take antibiotics to
keep the valve from becoming in-
fected when she had dental work
done or contracted certain infec-
tions.
She married, had three normal
pregnancies and performed all
those duties that mothers and
wives do to manage a family.
When the children grew up and
went their way, Esther played
tennis and did many things she
didn't have time to do before. She
had no problem keeping up with
her peers.
People expect to slow down as
they get older, so Esther paid no
attention to a tired feeling she be-
gan to experience most after-
noons. But she was annoyed
when climbing stairs, vacuum-
ing and making beds caused
shortness of breath.
Her husband's 60th birthday
party did her in. As soon it was
over, she dragged herself upstairs
and collapsed on the bed. Her
husband finally found her there
after searching the house.
As the weeks went on, Esther's
stamina decreased. At the tradi-
tional family Thanksgiving din-
ner, Esther couldn't help very
much in the preparations.
"If this is what getting old is
like, I don't like it one bit," she
said with frustration. "Not one
little bit."
That night Esther awakened
coughing and short of breath. She
breathed more easily on two or
three pillows than on just one and
felt even better sitting up. The
next morning she called her doc-
tor for an appointment.
The doctor examined Esther
and ordered an electrocardio-
gram, chest X-ray and blood test.
The heart valve leakage she'd
been told about as a teen-ager
was worse now. Over time, this
had placed an extra workload on
the heart and had weakened it.
Esther's lungs became congest-
ed, causing shortness of breath.
The heart is a muscular pump.
Heart valves open and close to
keep blood flowing around the
body. Heart valves ensure that a
drop of blood passes through each
heart chamber only once each
trip around the circulatory sys-
tem. Without valves, blood would
just flush back and forth without
circulating.
Dr. Marshall Franklin is a San
Diego-based cardiologist who
writes for Copley News Service.
Suppose you had to carry a pile
of bricks from one location to an-
other at the same time that some-
one else was putting more on the
pile you were trying to move. You
pick up four bricks at a time and
carry them to the location while
the other person adds four bricks
to the original pile each time you
take four bricks away.
Now consider picking up those
same four bricks, but each trip
you drop two of them. You would
have to make extra trips or car-
ry more bricks per trip to make
the transfer. Meanwhile, the oth-
er person would continue adding
four bricks at a time to the orig-
inal pile, making it bigger in spite
of the extra work you were doing.
This is the kind of workload a
leaking heart valve causes.
As the weeks went
on, her stamina
decreased.
For years, Esther's heart valve
only leaked a little, like dropping
one brick in the example above.
Over time, the leakage became
worse, like dropping two or three
bricks. Finally, it was too much
for the heart to manage. The
heart couldn't handle the blood
coming into it and couldn't ade-
quately pump enough blood out.
In Esther's case, the overload
shifted back into the lungs, caus-
ing congestion. The congested
lungs caused her shortness of
breath. When she lay down, grav-
ity shifted more blood from the
body into the lungs, making the
congestion even worse. That is
why her shortness of breath was
greater while lying flat and less
while supported on pillows or sit-
ting up.
We call this condition conges-
tive heart failure. Heart failure
does not mean that the heart
stops or that the patient is dead.
Rather, it refers to a situation in
which the heart cannot function
at a level required to keep bodily
functions normal. If not correct-
ed, the patient will remain inca-
pacitated or die.
There is no medicine to seal a
leaking heart valve. There are
good treatments to reduce the ab-
normal pressures and volumes
the condition causes. Doing this
can reduce the symptoms and
make life more comfortable.
Some people will need heart
surgery to reconstruct the valve
or replace it.
Esther's doctors referred her
to a cardiologist to manage her
condition. ❑
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c-\
/