myocarditis

I am a 36 yr. old female. I have been diagnosed with myocarditis since April. I am a RN and work in an ICU. I statrted with a URI in april, followed by tachycardia, SOB, CP, etc. The believe the culprit to be mycoplasma, but my EBV titres were high also. I have had alot of workup, cardiac cath, etc. MY left ventricle is mildly dilated, I have reccurent small pericardial and pleural effusions, and do not tolerate much activity. I am currenly on Lasix 20mg, Toprol 25 mg, and the Prednisone was restarted last week as all the NSAIDS wereb really doing havoc on my stomach and not working much either. My care has been handled by my cardiologist and visits to infectious disiease, pulmonary, etc. I've looked up alot on varios websites and can't find anything else to try for this persistent inflammatory state ( I have alot of pain and SOB with activity) my LV function has not deteriorated in function, but I' m not getting  much better either.I'm sorry this is lenghthy! My question is this, I live on Long Island NY, can you reccommend any centers in my area that are studying this or do you think a rheumatoid doc. would be helpful? Is this being treated with anything besides NSAIDS or Prednisone. Any info. you can provide, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much, Val B.

[CCF CARDIO MD - DLB]

I am not sure I understand exactly what the problem is. If your doctors believe that your symptoms are from pericarditis, NSAIDS and prednisone were reasonable things to try. For recurrent pericarditis, a medicine called colchicine can sometimes be useful when other medications have failed.

If you are asking for treatments specifically for myocarditis, there really is no proven role of either NSAIDS or steroids. Transplant centers such as ours (and Columbia in Manhattan)are trying various immunosuppressive agents for myocardial biopsy proven myocarditis - this is experimental and it is unclear at this time if the therapy is useful.