People with MVP have a higher risk of endocarditis, an inflammation of the heart’s inner lining. Bacteria is one of the potential causes of this condition, leading to bacterial endocarditis. When bacteria enter your heart through the bloodstream, it can damage the heart valve and make it floppy.

What’s interesting, germs can enter the heart from your mouth. Giving antibiotics used to be an effective way to prevent endocarditis during dental work. Is it still relevant these days? Scroll through and figure out the answer.

Mitral Valve Prolapse and Antibiotics Before Dental Work

Individuals Mitral Valve Prolapse syndrome basically do not need treatment because they barely show symptoms. Having that said, they are susceptible to a type of heart infection called infective endocarditis (IE) that is life-threatening.

Endocarditis occurs when germs infect your heart through the bloodstream from the other part of the body, most often your mouth. This is the most potential entrance gate for these bacteria, so dentists used to prescribe antibiotics or surgery for MVP patients as prophylaxis of endocarditis.

Antibiotics are the most common medication to fight against bacteria. They work effectively to destroy the bacteria and prevent infections in your body.

However, not every people with mitral valve disease receive antibiotics before teeth treatment nowadays. American Heart Association no longer recommends the use of this medication prior to a dental procedure for people with this condition.

Doctors will prescribe antibiotics for people with a higher risk of endocarditis. This may include but is not limited to:

1. People with a Prosthetic Heart Valve

People whose heart valve is damaged and receive a prosthetic valve have a higher risk of IE. They require antibiotic prophylaxis against the inflammation.

2. People with Endocarditis History

Endocarditis can recur. Individuals with a history of infective endocarditis receive prophylaxis before a dental procedure. This helps prevent the infection from recurring.

3. People with Congenital Heart Defects

This category includes individuals with cyanotic congenital heart disease, congenital heart defect, and repaired congenital heart disease.

In short, antibiotic prophylaxis is no longer recommended for individuals with mitral valve prolapse unless they develop serious symptoms. Those with a high risk of endocarditis such as people with a prosthetic heart valve or endocarditis history need to take the medication before dental work.

The post Mitral Valve Prolapse and Dental Work, Antibiotics Needed appeared first on Living with MVP.

I’m always struggling with tachycardia because it will make me a bit afraid to do activities, especially that consumes my energy.

I’ve been doing acupuncture for almost 3 years now because it have help me free from anxiety. So, because I still have occasional chest pain, few weeks ago I asked my acupuncturist on how to reduce chest pain using herbs or simple remedy, I’ve always asked him about herbs and home-made remedies because he use to studied herbs as medicine with one of the well-known expert in here in Indonesia.

So, he advised me to simply drink lemon tea to reduce my chest pain. I did actually drank it but only once because it was making me felt a bit dizzy (I think it’s because of the tea).

Yesterday night, I was out to McDonalds with my wife and kids and I ordered ice lemon tea with rice and scrambled egg plus friend chicken.

From past experience, I knew I will get tachycardia after eating them all but to my surprised I DIDN’T!!

I told my wife about it and I said to her the only thing that was different from the menu I use to ate at McDonald was the ice lemon tea, I usually only ordered mineral water but they run out of water so I ordered ice lemon tea.

The next day I told my wife I want to do an experiment. I asked her to make me ice lemon tea and during lunch I will eat a lot of meal while drinking ice lemon tea to see if my heart rate still in it’s normal range after eating lunch.

To my surprise my heart rate was normal, to make sure I checked my heart rate every 5-15 minutes for about 2 hours to see in there’s a significant increase.

Nothing changed! My heart rate was still in normal zone (with beta blocker my resting heart rate is always between 75-84 bpm), it was between 88 – 92 bpm while I’m standing!

But, I’m still feeling a bit dizzy after drinking a full glass of that tea.

So, today I asked my wife to just mix lemon and water. I drank it after breakfast and after I took my beta blocker.

After lunch without drinking lemon water, my heart rate was around 92-94 (bpm). Then in the evening I ate a large chunk of chicken noodle (still without drinking lemon water) and my heart rate was 94 bpm. Totally still in the normal heart rate zone.

I dunno if it will work in other people, but it does works really well with me.

Anyone have tried lemon water or ice lemon tea before and what effects do you feel to your body?

The post I Just Found a Way How to Reduce My Tachycardia appeared first on Living with MVP.

It was all started in March, 2015 when I started feeling my heart beat is faster that usual. Last year in 2014, I noticed the same thing for about a week but my heart beat was back to normal again after a doctor gave me a medicine to lower my blood pressure.

So, when my heart was beating faster that usual I didn’t worry much because it happened before and it goes away in about a week. So, I visited the same doctor and he gave me the same medicine.

But, I was about to be surprised.

Rushed to the ER

Two days just after taking the medicine I was rushed to the ER because my heart was pounding so fast when I was driving my car with my family, I thought I was having a heart attack. I was taken to the ER by taxi with my wife and my daughter, we left our son with her grandmother.

In the ER the nurse check my heart beat with EKG and the EKG shows that my HR was 138 per minute. It was way too high!

Just to keep thing short, I was released from the hospital 4 days later and the cardiologist just said that my heart was still fine and he only noticed the structure was a bit abnormal. He didn’t mentioned anything at all about Mitral Valve Prolapse or anything else. I totally hate this guy!

Mitral Valve Prolapse was Total Nightmare

For the next 4 months, it was like a total nightmare. I can’t walk more than 200 meters without resting, I even have to walk slower just to prevent my heart from beating to fast.

I was also having panic attacks, I was too afraid to drive a car, I can’t be left alone in the house because I always had the feeling that I could die any minute. I didn’t go anywhere a side from my office which is only 200 meters from my house. If I went somewhere, I need someone to accompany me all the time.

Once, I was going to visit several relatives house during Eid Fitr holiday. Before I go with my family by Uber, I checked the location of nearest hospitals in my driving path. So if anything goes wrong with me, I know where to go. Yeah, I was that terrified!

Fyi, some times my heart rate could reach more than 100/minute when I’m just sitting on the couch, when I stand up it can reach 114 or more.

Asking for Second Opinion

During these 4 months I visited several internist because the previous cardiologist said my heart was fine.  I did an endoscopy to check if I have any digestion problem, apparently my stomach was fine.

Because nothing changed in 4 months, I decided to visit another cardiologist and she put me on EKG, Treadmill stress test and Echocardiogram.

My stress test was not that good, I can only last 3 minutes 23 seconds on the treadmill. Luckily she found no blockage in my heart and I can reached 173 beat/minute, which is 93% of my max heart rate. I also didn’t feel any chest pain during  the stress test.

When the stress test started, my wife said on the monitor my heart rate was already beating 120/minute.

In my Echocardiogram, the cardiologist said that I have mild Mitral Valve Prolapse with trivial regurgitation. She said it was not life threatening and I just need to visit her regularly to do routine checkup.

She prescribed me with a beta blocker (Concor 2,5mg) and I should take it once per day after breakfast. I should not do anything physical before taking the beta blocker.

Feeling Much Better With Beta Blocker

After taking beta blocker I noticed that I’m feeling much better.

During the next several months I can do regular activities, I can also do routine exercises almost everyday (I usually walked for 15-30 minutes). Regular exercise is important, even for people that have heart problem. Start with something small such as walking but first consult your cardiologist.

I started with walking 100 meters a day at first and after several months, I can walk 2 kilometers without resting. I know it’s not much but it was a big milestone for me.

I can now drive my car, although I still need someone to accompany me while driving (my dad asked me to) and I can go to attend events and seminars or hangout with my friends by my self, thanks to Uber!

It’s been more than 2 years now since I’ve taken beta blocker. Sometimes I still feel several symptoms every now and then.

The most terrifying one is skipped beat, but I started to not to worry much when the symptoms started to arise. They tend to go away in a few minutes, hour or days if we stop consume or doing anything that could trigger it.

In my case, skipped beat (you feel your heart pausing between beats) only happens when I ate something that I shouldn’t have.

I’ll write a separate article about what you should not eat or consume if you have MVP.

Hope you this find article useful, MVP is not life threatening especially if it’s only mild MVP, even if your MVP grows to severe regurgitation it is still treatable – your cardiologist may do heart surgery. It’s not going to make you die of a heart attack.

Just make sure you took the medicine your cardiologist prescribed you and try not to worry to much (yeah, I know it’s hard but it’s doable).

Stay healthy!

The post Diagnosed With Mitral Valve Prolapse and Regurgitation appeared first on Living with MVP.

Thanks for stopping by. I just created this blog to share my thoughts and my experience with Mitral Valve Prolapse (MVP) and how I still try to live my life as normal as possible every day with MVP.

Hope this blog will be useful for anyone who just diagnosed with MVP, you are not alone and there are thousands of people with the same condition as you and me and they still living and breathing!

The post Starting a Mitral Valve Prolapse Blog appeared first on Living with MVP.