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Question:
Are mild leakage of a heart valve and palpitations related?
Dear Doctor, I'm a girl from Belgium, 24 years old and just visited the cardiologue due to heart palpitations which are bothering me a lot and mostly during my sleep. He cannot find an answer to this but he discovered a very very mild degree of leaking valve (one). He says this is not urgent and has nothing to do or isn't related to my disturbed heart rhythm. Is this true? And most of all: is it true that it's possible for a leak not to get worse? Should I consult another cardiologue to be sure? Thanks!
submitted by Deborah from Belgium on 2/25/10
Answer:
by Texas Heart Institute cardiologist, Christopher M. Frank, MD
A mild degree of valve leakage, especially of the tricuspid or pulmonic valve, is so common as to qualify as normal, and although leakage of the aortic or mitral valve is not quite normal, "mild" regurgitation or leakage is essentially never the cause of symptoms. Although mild leakage can indeed progress to more significant problems in some cases, it does so over the course of many years to decades when it does so at all.
Palpitations may reflect electrical problems of the heart (which can be related to other heart problems but can also be seen in people with otherwise completely normal hearts), and are best evaluated with some kind of monitor, of which a variety are available. The patient must have the symptom while wearing the monitor for the doctor to be able to know what the heart rhythm is doing during the symptom; if it's entirely normal, that generally means that the problem is not related to arrhythmias and can often be related to anxiety and emotional stress. If the rhythm is not normal, it can generally be treated, if necessary, with some combination of medication and interventional procedures with a catheter.
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Updated March 2010
