Mitral Valve Regurge

[mas2782]

I may have posted about this a while back, but I can't find any of the old forum responses on this topic.

I was diagnosed last year with mild MVR...one cardio (of three I visited with) said the TEE may have shown mild to low moderate regurge. At any rate, two subsequent echos have shown mild MR. I have no prolapse of the valve. I exercise every other day (cardio), take CoQ10 and Mag. I have periods almost every month with PVCs which I have been told are completely benign.

My question is, what are the predictive factors of whether MVR will progress? I've heard everything from, this may never get worse to it could require surgery some day.

The best cardio (credentials wise) that I saw said to live my life completely normally and that this may never present further...anyone dealt with this for a longer time than me?

Thanks

[deedle1976]

Hi, there was a study published in american journal of cardiology which showed that 19% of the population had mitral regurgitation of more than or equal to mild severity. This was based on Color Doppler echocardiography performed in 1,696 men and 1,893 women.

[Jack54]

I have mild MVR, but I do not have any symptoms that I know of. (knock on wood, or my head) I was told that trace to mild MVR was very common, as in 40% of the population. I have an enlarged left atrium and diastolic failure. I believe this could be the cause of my MVR. I haven't thought to ask, but will.

I don't think that anyone can predict how the MVR will progress, but a heart healthy lifestyle, free of bad habits would/will help a lot I think. Read up on how much calcium women really need. I think most take too much. I ran across a good article the other day and showed it to my wife. An elderly woman ask a doctor how much calcium she needed to take. She was taking 1200-1500 mg per day. He explained to her how she probably only needed around 400-500 mg per day.

If you take to much, it gets into the blood stream and the doc didn't say it, I don't believe, but theoretically it seems it could cause problems within the heart, such as valve stenosis and calcification of the coronary arteries.

Very high circulating blood calcium is known as hypercalcaemia.

[Momto3]

I've known about my regurgitation for over 25 years.  I've been told, "you never know which cases will progress," "it may never progress," "you will probably need surgery in the future," and a bunch of variants in between.  Over the years, I'm not sure if the regurg itself has changed, but I do know that echos are interpreted differently.  Some indicate mild to moderate regurge, and others have said moderately severe.  When the test pointed to moderately-severe, I had a TEE and turns out the valve was not leaking as bad as the echo showed.  Whew!  My doctor follows the progress (or lack thereof) with serial echos and she compares the results over time.

Do you have periodic echos to watch for changes?  

Congrats on keeping up with the cardio exercises!  

Connie