Does anyone have a heart murmur?

[janinegirly]

How has it affected your life? Someone close to me has found out they have one. I always thought it was something that one was born with, but apparently it can come later in life or go undetected earlier on. I get the impression it is quite harmless, but would like to educate myself more in case someone here has more experience with it.

 

[Logan Sapphire]

I have a very slight one- it''s never been a problem. My twin sister had one that until she was 15, was thought to be a result of rheumatic fever, which she had as a kid. When she was 15, they discovered that the "murmur" was actually a silver dollar-sized hole in her heart. She had open heart surgery and has been fine, though the drs have cautioned her that having a vaginal birth could stress her heart too much. I think her story is probably way in the minority though.

 

[icekid]

It depends; some murmurs are harmless, others are not. And you can definitely develop them later. They do not necessarily have to be congenital. If it is something new, it''s probably worth having a cardiologist look into.

 

[AmberGretchen]

Ditto icekid - sometimes harmless, sometimes not. I had one for a while, diagnosed at age 16, but it seems to have since gone away, and my heart was 110% healthy when they did further tests at the time.

 

[Kaleigh]

I had one in my late 20''s while pregnant. I don''t know how or why, but thank goodness it went away.... I never had any symptoms...
It freaked me out when they told me I had one.

 

[janinegirly]

Thank you everyone for the replies, I really appreciate it.

Kaleigh, i''ve heard that it can come about during pregnancy with all the extra blood being pumped, but then things go back to normal after. So seems like in that case, it is more a temporary state.

In other situations, I didn''t know it was something that could go away over time. While it appears to be relatively harmless, it''s still kind of worrying b/c the heart is the most important organ (that and the brain) and hearing that there is anything unusual or irregular going on is not great to hear.