Stress Heart Attack

[Villager]

I’m a 57-year-old female who recently had a stress-related heart attack  (no heart disease).  My ejection fraction was 25% on hospital admission, up to 35% two days later on catheterization.  No blockage shown on catheterization.  Is this something that the heart damage can fully recover from?  Also, I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse on EKG 15 years ago.  My present cardiologist said it’s not related to the heart attack and, in fact, I don’t have mitral valve prolapse.  He said I have a mild thickening of the mitral and aortic valves.  He said MVP can be transient.  Is that possible?  Can it just disappear?  Thank you very much for your help.

[Villager]

Thank you very much for your comments.  Over the years doctors have told me they could hear the MVP with a stethoscope.  My current cardiologist, however, says the echo shows "mild" thickening of the mitral and aortic valves, not MVP.  My grandmother died at 52 of a stroke caused by mitral stenosis.  I was always told it was from rheumatic fever as a child, but could my thickening be genetic, or do those valves thicken as we age?  I'm 57 now.  Having just had a heart attack, now I'm becoming more concerned about anything on my echo out of the norm.  Thank you again very much for your input.

[Cleveland Clinic]

You may have a condition called broken heart syndrome or Takasubu's heart disease, which is a sudden decrease in heart function in the absence of significant coronary disease and presence of a severe stressor. If you in fact have this condition, the prognosis for recovery is reported as good, that is better than the ischemic and other forms of non ischemic cardiomyopathy. You should still take ace inhibitors, beta blockers and aspirin and get a repeat echocardiogram in 3- 6months to verify improvement or normalization of your heart function.
MVP is usually not diagnosed on an EKG, at least as far as I know. It can be auscultated on exam and can be transient depending on loading conditions of the heart. But you do not in fact have MVP if the current echo does not demonstrate it: in fact , you have the opposite finding on the mitral valve, it is thickened and not thin or floppy as is usally seen in MVP.