Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome - Being dissimilar
When I was twelve, our stern, small-town physician diagnosed me with mitral valve prolapse (Mvp), though he never explained the disorder. While my teens I had strange symptoms other girls didn't experience: fainting, fatigue, and eyes burning as though wind blew permanently into them. My mom noticed and trotted me off to that detestable, cursing physician.
Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome - Being dissimilar
In his office he scolded me in his nasal voice, "There's not a damn thing wrong with you. God Almighty, don't give your poor mom something more to worry about. Think about her instead of being selfish. What you need is a psychiatrist." I can see his face redden with anger.
Didn't he remember? Earlier, after his Mvp diagnosis, he had curtailed any sports with the use of my arms, which is not the way Mvp is handled now. Agreeing to him, in two years I would be fine. Absolutely I had felt better before the sports restriction. Without sports for two years I had lost muscle drive and tone.
Mitral Valve Prolapse
Mvp is the most commonly inherited heart qoute in the United States. Yet it is listed with the National society of Rare Disorders (Nord) because the disorder is not completely understood or acknowledged by most physicians. While the statistics vary with sources, the estimated ration who have this qoute includes as many as thirty percent in this country. Agreeing to a contemplate in the late 80s, three times more women have Mvp than men.
The heart has four valves inside it to pump the blood in and out: the aortic, the mitral, the pulmonary, and the tricuspid. The mitral valve acts like a door between the left atrium and the left ventricle in the heart. When the lower part of a general heart contracts, the mitral valve closes and prevents any blood leakage into the upper chamber. With Mvp, the valve balloons out of shape. A physician hears this through a stethoscope as a click. If the valve shifts enough, it can allow some blood to flow back into the upper chamber, and the physician hears a murmur.
Have you heard your own heart through a stethoscope? Have you heard the click or the murmur? Ask your physician to allow you to do this. It's important you know what sound your heart makes. Of course, some murmurs and clicks are difficult even for a cardiologist to detect. But give it a try. If you squat, the hardest position on the heart, you will hear it. One woman chose her physician based on whether the physician could hear her murmur.
However, this structural flaw is not what regularly causes the myriad of symptoms. Most Mvp habitancy have salutary hearts.
Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome With Dysautonomia
A syndrome is a range of symptoms which has more than one cause, whereas a disease has a single cause. Mvps/D has a recognizable pattern of symptoms and signs. As the physicians and researchers understand, the symptoms reflect a failure of operate mechanisms, specifically in the nervous system. The more they learn about the disorder, the more likely they will be able to find a single cause and turn Mvps/D to a disease status.
The nervous principles is divided into two parts: voluntary and involuntary. The involuntary nervous system, also known as the autonomic nervous principles (Ans), is more complicated and controls most corporeal functions such as body temperature, sweating, blood pressure, heart rate, salivation, pupil dilation and contraction, sleep-wakefulness balance, intestinal functions, digestion, and many others. This principles has two major divisions: sympathetic, which speeds up the system, and the parasympathetic, which slows the system.
The physicians connect some Mvp symptoms to the Ans, an imbalance known as dysautonomia or an autonomic (which means automatic) nervous principles dysfunction. Therefore, when the Mvp patient experiences symptoms that involve the Ans, the physicians refer to the disorder as mitral valve prolapse syndrome with dysautonomia, the most base type of dysautonomia.
The central qoute of Mvps/D is the body's excessive response to adrenaline and adrenaline-like hormones. (Hormones and nerves serve as operate systems in the body.) Most Mvps/D patients have a bit too much noradrenaline, a related hormone. Most of the symptoms come from various organs' over-responsiveness to even general amounts of adrenaline-like hormones.
Thus, you can see it would be best for Mvps/D patients to minimize the issue of adrenaline into their blood streams. Of policy stimulants of any kind-caffeine, sugar, alcohol, chocolate, aspartame, NutraSweet, Splenda, monosodium glutamate, and some over-the-counter medications, those containing caffeine, epinephrine, ephedrine, and pseudoephedrine-should be eliminated from your diet. Stimulants can consist of habitancy and activities. Movies, at times, can over-stimulate my system, even talking.
Check with your physician before a therapist uses electricity, which can trigger symptoms. Patients should allow only moderate sun and heat exposure and moderately advance to condition their bodies to exercise. These cautions will withhold a high blood volume. A higher blood volume means an adrenaline growth is less likely. Patients also need to operate their responses to stressful emotional situations. Yeah, right! That's a trick in itself.
Debbie Petersen, who has yet to get her symptoms under control, calls the dysautonomia part an everyday hell to live with. "Right now it's just trial and error every day."
'I was so happy to know there was a name for what is partly wrong with me: dysautonomia," wrote Rita McNeil. "Most habitancy have never heard of it, let alone know what it means."
"The disorder takes a important toll on lifestyle and work capacity," commented Linda Smith of the National Dysautonomia explore Foundation (Ndrf).
Dr. David H. P. Streeten, a explore pioneer for orthostatic intolerance (Oi), sums the impact of dysautonomia on a person's life: "While we are not permanently aware of the action of the autonomic nervous principles as we are of unusual sensory and motor events, the general functioning of the autonomic nervous principles day and night, from heart-beat to heart-beat, plays a largely unconscious but vital role in our livelihood. It is not surprising, therefore, that autonomic abnormalities, though they are regularly more difficult to recognize than a severe pain, a sensory loss, or numbness of a limb, may be even more important in impairing the capability and even jeopardizing the continuation of life."
Space Shuttle Columbia
The astronauts sense similar problems when they take off from Earth and land from outer space. Dr. Andrew Gaffney, cardiologist and astronaut, served as Payload devotee on Spacelab Sciences 1 as part of a Space Shuttle Columbia mission in the early 90s to study the astronauts' problems.
Understanding how our Mvps/D problems work helped him understand why the astronauts sense their symptoms such as dizziness and faintness when they stand. While the early part of the space flight, Dr. Gaffney flew with a catheter inserted into his arm vein to description the blood pressure around his heart. Within a few hours after lift-off, his blood pressure and blood volume dropped remarkably, Agreeing to favorite Science Magazine, March, 1993.
"As we sort out that data," Dr. Gaffney said, "we are learning a lot more about where the blood goes, where it is stored-in terms of the venous system, and the association between the adrenalin levels and the blood volume."
Dr. Gaffney, chief of clinical cardiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Memphis, Tn, describes what he knows Mvps/D to be: "There is a primary abnormality of autonomic tone so that these habitancy tend to be vascularly constricted." That constriction leads to shrinkage of blood volume. The lower volume feeds back and causes more constriction and that becomes a vicious cycle.
That cycle contributes to the symptoms such as fatigue. "We all know patients who are anemic have fatigue, and every person understands that," Dr. Gaffney said. "Well, it is perhaps a exiguous more difficult to understand (with Mvps/D). You can have the right estimate of blood volume but if you don't have sufficient red cells in it, then you get tired because you don't deliver the oxygen. That's anemia. You can have the right attentiveness of red blood cells, so you are not anemic, but if you don't have sufficient blood, then it is the same problem. Absolute estimate of red blood cells that carry the oxygen is what determines whether you can exercise more."
Blood Volume
"Blood volume is important to forestall symptoms from starting," said Susan Elliott, who taught physics before Mvps/D symptoms changed her lifestyle. "When blood volume gets low, it tends to trigger a chain of reactive events that cause things like tachycardia, feeling too hot or too cold."
Even a exiguous imbalance in the Ans can cause low blood volume in Mvp patients. Up to twenty-five percent lower. The thirst signal fails to turn on, holding the blood volume low.
It is very important for habitancy with Mvps/D to drink at least 70 ounces of fluids daily, more if the climatic characteristic is higher. A good way to remember the estimate is if the climatic characteristic is higher than 70, drink the equal estimate of ounces to the degrees in temperature. Such as if it is 86 degrees, drink 86 ounces of fluids. An easy way to achieve this is to keep a water bottle with you and try to drink eight ounces every hour. And to make it Absolutely fun, sing the tune to "Pump Up the Volume," by M/A/R/R/S.
Susan also found the more water, the less her Mvps symptoms such as twisting leg muscles. Also included in her regimen were potassium, zinc, and magnesium, minerals helpful to heart and muscular function and energy metabolism.
Fluids "fake out your body," Susan says, development it seem to have higher blood volume. She drinks a gallon of water a day, all the time remembering to salt the water or eat something salty with it. The salt helps withhold water and important nutrients such as potassium. Other view is to intake fluids with salt present like sports drinks or soups. However, patients with hypertension (high blood pressure) need to consult their physician first.
Vertical Vs Horizontal
When a Mvps/D person lies down, she can immediately sense symptoms such as tachycardia or heart pounding. "If you lie flat, that can yield too much blood to your head and heart too fast," Susan said.
While we are vertical, the blood circulates the whole body with less volume than habitancy without Mvp. When our bodies become horizontal, the blood floods the head and the heart chambers, causing the symptoms, until the pumping adjusts.
To offset this, some habitancy sleep on a exiguous incline such as in a recliner. To originate her slant, Susan puts a board beneath her headboard. Pat Conrad sleeps on two pillows. Then her palpitations are "not so extreme." When the heart pain continues, she elevates her feet. My husband and I use two thick encyclopedia volumes that help me and his gastrointestinal reflux disorder (Gerd).
Orthostatic Intolerance (Oi)
People take their capability to stand for granted. Oi patients do not. Daily they struggle with the symptoms brought on by the vertical position. Upon standing, a person with orthostatic hypotension, Other word for Oi, might sense lightheadedness, dizziness, palpitations (throbbing or heavy beats), tremulousness, optic changes, a stuffed head feeling, ears ringing or buzzing, fainting, and poor attentiveness because her blood pressure has suddenly fallen. About a half million Americans have Oi, Agreeing to the National Dysautonomia explore Foundation.
Being upright produces blood pooling in the lower abdomen and limbs, blood which is no longer available to the upper body. With an productive Ans, the body fast compensates by addition the heart rate and other cardiac output.
When the Oi person stands, her blood volume lowers, her blood vessels lose an excessive estimate of plasma, and her kidneys pour out salt.
Some patients sense fatigue, tachycardia (abnormally rapid heartbeats), and shortness of breath, which is termed sympathontonic or hyperadrenergic orthostatic hypotension because the sympathetic part of the Ans increases.
Not every patient has all these abnormalities. Most Oi patients have a mild case which can improve over weeks or months. Most will at last be free of their symptoms.
However, in patients with severe symptoms or with a sudden Ans alteration such as actor-director Christopher Reeves experienced with his fall, the recovery may never come.
A few other names used for Oi are as follows:
orthostatic tachycardia syndrome
postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (Pots)
hyperadrenergic postural hypotension
partial dysautonomia
sympathotonic orthostatic hypotension
hyperadrenergic orthostatic hypotension
mitral valve prolapse syndrome
Supplemental Help
Calcium
Calcium, the body's most abundant mineral, is settled mostly in the bones and teeth because its function is to build and sound bones and teeth. It also is important for salutary blood, quarterly heart beats, and allowable nerve transmission. Calcium is useful for cardiovascular disorders. Cases of calcium insufficiency have provoked heart palpitations, slow pulse rates, and excessive irritability of nerves and muscles.
The best supplemental source lies in calcium lactate or gluconate because these are natural derivatives and easier to absorb. Foods rich in calcium are milk products, green leafy vegetables, shellfish, and molasses.
Magnesium
This important mineral lives within the body cells to originate enzymes for the metabolism of carbohydrates and amino acids. It helps to regulate the acid-alkaline equilibrium and to promote absorption and metabolism of other minerals and vitamins. With nearly 70 percent of it settled in the bones, magnesium aids While bone growth, is vital for allowable nerve, muscle, and heart functions, helps regulate body climatic characteristic and blood sugar turn to energy. Magnesium is alkaline, so it should not be taken after meals but can be used in place of antacids.
This mineral can help forestall heart attacks and depression. It is useful for neuromuscular disorders, nervousness, and sensitivity to noise. Contrary to the old sayings, magnesium helps form the hard tooth enamel that resists decay, not calcium.
Large amounts of magnesium can be toxic if the calcium is low and phosphorus is high. Magnesium loss increases with the use of diuretics and alcohol. Foods rich in this mineral are seafood, whole grains, dark-green vegetables, molasses, and nuts.
Potassium
Elaine Hansen had spells of irregular heartbeats that would last up to twelve hours, often While the night. She felt very tired afterwards. Her house physician said the cause was low potassium.
This important mineral works with sodium to help normalize the heartbeat. If you're prone to palpitations, you might feel them when you are in the low-to-normal range for serum potassium. When they come on, try drinking orange juice to help the palpitations go away.
Together, potassium and sodium regulate the body's water balance, i.e. They distribute the fluids on the cells' walls. They equalize the acid-alkali factor, help in muscle contraction and expansion and in nerve stimulation. With phosphorus, potassium sends oxygen to the brain and with calcium regulates neuromuscular activity. This is a handy exiguous mineral for our bodies.
However, potassium and sodium must be in equilibrium or excessive salt will deplete potassium. Alcohol and excessive sugar can deplete both potassium and magnesium. Potassium is excreted through urination and perspiration. Foods with potassium are lean meats, whole grains, vegetables, dried fruits, legumes, and sunflower seeds. A high potassium level can be life-threatening and can occur in renal failure.
Sodium
Half of our body's sodium is found in the extra-cellular fluids such as the blood vessels, arteries, veins, and capillaries. As I wrote in the last section, sodium works in conjunction with potassium. It keeps other blood minerals soluble so they won't become deposits in the bloodstream. Foods simply rich in sodium are seafood, celery, milk products, table salt, and baking powder.
Water
In elementary school we learned water is two-thirds of our body weight, so we know it's our body's most important nutrient. It makes up about 70 percent of our weight. We can live longer without food than we can without water. Water is needed for all from maintaining body climatic characteristic to carrying away our waste. For Mvps/D, water is important to sound a level high blood volume.
My young neighbor Ryan had a qoute with constipation. His parents used all the usual remedies. Still, Ryan might wait as long as five days without a bowel movement.
Finally his physician asked how much water he drank daily. When his mom answered, the physician said that was sufficient for some; however, some people's colons suck up water at separate rates. The faster the absorbency, the firmer the stools. Presumably then (assuming no other variants), the more water one drinks, the softer the stools.
I never considered water as an riposte to my irritable bowel syndrome (Ibs). I had assured myself I drank sufficient water. Besides, my stools regularly turn when I've overworked and my other symptoms, such as migraine and fatigue, come out of hiding.
When I began drinking my gallon (and that takes discipline!), my stools softened to general consistency without my other Mvps/D appearing. Since I've been on the gallon regimen, my stools have been firm or softened, never irritably hard.
Of course, other elements can be complicated such as the foods we eat and much more. Chocolate and red meats preserve stools. I discovered . . . For me . . . That water helped my Ibs.
Someone commented about drinking too much water. In the May, 2000, issue of Town and Country magazine, Diane Quagliani, a registered dietitian and spokesman for the American Dietetic Association, was quoted, "Everyone loses about ten cups of water daily, so it's important to drink about eight eight-ounce cups of fluid-the rest is made up by water in foods and the water the body makes in metabolism. The bigger, more active, and more overheated you are, the more fluids you should take in. Taking in too much (water) is not very likely, unless it is gallons a day, and the main danger would be flushing out too many electrolytes. salutary kidneys can keep up with most consumption."
Others complained they would have to run to the potty more often. In hot humid weather, the midpoint person should eliminate urine every two hours if the person drinks sufficient water to cover sweating, Agreeing to my house physician.
When I tried the gallon experiment, some days I hit the toilet plunger more than the norm. But Other day I wouldn't. What is general anyway? The interrogate should be "What is best for your body?"
The Town and Country description writer, Ila Stranger, wrote that it "makes sense that drinking sufficient water is bound to help us avoid dehydration-which can happen as Absolutely in the overheated rooms of midwinter as in the summer sun-and make us look and feel alive and well."
Each day I grab a gallon jug of spring water or fill a gallon pitcher and set it on the counter to remind me to strive to drink more water. Not only for my Ibs but for my blood volume, blood pressure, and the many other tasks my body permanently performs. I've found in the winter lukewarm water is swallowed easier. Ice water is a shock to the throat, sometimes even in hot weather.
Some habitancy prefer to drink mineral water rather than tap water. Others use well water. Neither should be relied upon for a person's source of minerals. Distilled means the water has been boiled water with all harmful or useful minerals eliminated. Fruits and vegetables are good dietary sources for chemically pure water, which is 100 percent pure hydrogen and oxygen. The use of these are an individual choice.
The Environmental protection Agency's hot line is 1-800-426-4791; its website is http://www.epa.gov/safewater. The Natural Resources Defense Council website (www.nrdc.org) contains in its archives the results of a up-to-date four-year study on bottled waters. The author of the summary results is Dr. Andrew Weil on the website http://www.pathfinder.com/drweil.
Antibiotics
Before any invasive procedures, Mvps/D patients with valve leakage should take antibiotics to forestall bacterial infection from forming on their valve. Such as dental work, body piercing, tattoo, and surgery. A few years ago the physicians recommended antibiotics for all Mvp patients. Now only those with exact regurgitation (leakage) are urged to do this, and the dosage has been cutback to only before the procedure.
For other surgeries and procedures you can consult with your physician or the Mvp clinics.
Research In Mvps/D
Dr. Al Davies, connect professor of medicine at Baylor College of medicine in Houston, has led the Mvps/D explore of chemical reactions between adrenaline and any important proteins.
The proteins are settled near the lining membrane of a cell of a body organ. Three proteins of most importance are: the receptor on the cell's surface, a G-protein settled inward, and an enzyme called adenylyl cyclase on the inside cell membrane's surface.
Normally, adrenaline attaches to the receptor protein, which combines with the G-protein. (Full name is stimulatory guanine nucleotide regulatory protein.) Once these are activated, they turn on the enzyme which causes internal actions such as rising blood pressure or increased heart rate.
Dr. Davies and his colleagues have shown that the Mvps/D patient's abnormally increased sensitivity to adrenaline is due to an overly active, abnormal G-protein.
The possibilities to the interrogate "Why?" are numerous. And there are many steps before a full riposte and medicine are developed. The researchers view this might be due to an abnormal gene since the illness is hereditary. However, their studies show the gene is normal.
To the Mvps/D patient, that looking carries hope because the cause is not something as simple as a bad gene passed down from our grandfather. Something happens to the protein after the gene makes it and before the adrenaline activates it.
Editor of the November, 1998, special American Journal of healing Sciences supplement on Oi, Dr. David Robertson entitled the issue "Epidemic of Orthostatic Tachycardia and Orthostatic Intolerance." Dr. Robinson writes that many centers actively pursue Oi explore and expect rapid improvements in diagnosis and therapy. The director of the Clinical explore center at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he adds, "A salutary appearing 20-year-old woman with dizziness, palpitations, and fatigue is Absolutely no longer passed over as having a psychosomatic illness!" Well, maybe not in Nashville. commonly the tilt table test is used to diagnose a dysautonomia.
Many Physicians' Attitudes
My old country physician may sound old-fashioned and something of the past; however, we with Mvps/D know his attitude remains with most of the physicians we meet today. One of the tough barriers we have to get around is looking a knowledgeable, caring physician.
For most habitancy who have diabetes, cancer, or even strange diseases, they can sense a physician, and within a few visits they have their illnesses diagnosed. They are believed from the time they enter the physician's office.
We with Mvps/D are not believed. We must explore our own disorder, be abreast of the latest drug regimens, carry literature about our illness to give to the physician, and then know the physician probably will not consider our illness legitimate or treat us. It's just crazy when you think about it! How much proof does a physician need? Why can't they keep informed about Mvps/D when a fifth of the nation has Mvp and might perhaps become symptomatic?
Education and explore are keys to solving the Mvps/D puzzle in our bodies. With these all the time lies hope. Miles and miles of hope!
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