heart murmur

[dispmarsh911]

Well, yestertday my son stayed after school to get his sports physical and during that time we were told that the doctor hear a heart murmur. Now this makes me feel like a awful parent because during fall ball Andrew complained of a chestpain and said he just felt different. I just thought he maybe over worked himself and gave him some cold water and told him to take a break. He has never complained of anything else but I still feel awful. How common are these heart murmurs? I have a doctors apointment set friday morning.    Will this effect him playing sports? My son is baseball player of 10 years and this would crush him. This is just such a shock to us. I hope this is something he will out grow.....but are the chances good he will out grow this? and is this common to not catch this all these years until now?

[Michael J. McWilliams, M.D.]

Depending on the characteristics of the murmur, it is important that he have an echocardiogram to evaluate the cause of the murmur.  The main concerns is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  Not everyone with a murmur has heart disease, in fact it is pretty rare, but it is important to evaluate.  I would recommend refraining from exercise until he has a cardiac evaluation.  Over all his risk is probably low, but there is no reason to take any chances.  I don't know the numbers on how common murmurs are but I would guess greater than 5%.  It depends on what the murmur sounds like and that is where experience matters.

You should not feel badly. If you took your child to a doctor for every comment they made you would live in a doctors office.  Being a doctor, patient and parent is very humbling and we are all learning every day.

I hope this helps and good luck with the doctors visit.

[Michael J. McWilliams, M.D.]

your welcome.  I hope all goes well.

[dispmarsh911]

I just wanted to thank you for the fast reply