chest pain common after heart defect corrected??

Hello.
My daughter is 4 years old. She had a sucessful correction of an atrioventricular canal defect (aka Ostium Primum ASD) when she was six months old in October 2006.

Since then she has had great check ups and echos. She does have minimal leakage from her mitral valve.

This afternoon, she was sitting on her little couch, eating yogurt and watching TV. She walked in the other room with an indescribible look and she said that it felt like someone was ripping her chest apart.

I asked her where it hurt and it was right in the middle on top of the breastbone. She also said that her heart was beating fast....maybe because of the pain?

Can it be plueresy? (sp)  Or is it too far past her surgery to have complications from her heart?

I'm getting worried.

Thank you!!

[grendslori]

I would let her pediatric cardiologist kow about this even though it is probably nothing. Children often times refer to having chest pain when in fact, they are simply aware of their heart beating. She, more than likely, is having palpatations and because she is too young to understand the mechanisms of true heart related chest pain, she calls it chest pain. True heart related chest pain is extremely rare in children and is usually due to some form of cardiomyopathy where the heart muscle walls are too thin or too thick which causes the muscle to have a lack of bloodflow. it is the lack of bloodflow to the muscle that is the cause of chest pain. In adults it is usually due to Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). If your daughter's echoes are normal, you probably don't have an issue to deal with. Your doctor may want her to wear a Holter Monitor for a day or two to see if she is having an arrhythmia problem. Take care

[CHELLETO6DOGS]

question for you now that I see what you posted, so if the child does have the thickness of the wall will this turn a child blue at times since it is a lack of blood flow??? this is what Cree Cree has he does have a thickness and it has gotten a tad worse. and well you know the story behind the rest.
and MAMIJ good luck to your daughter
Michelle

[mamiJ]

thanks!  It's been almost a week and it hasn't happened again. I called the cadiologist the next day and left a message. they called me back the next day and left a message as well. Bad timing, that my older daughter was admitted to the hospital at that time and I have not been able to follow up.
i'm guessing it was nothing since she has not complained since, but I am going to call back on Monday anyway..thanks for your responses!

[grendslori]

To answer your question about a child turning blue, the answer would be, No. It doesn't work that way with a thickened wall. I'm not sure what you are talking about Chris having a thickness. If he had HCM, everyone would have been aware of that problem in him as it is EASILY seen on an echo and there is also a very specific type of heart murmur which is extremely rare in the sense that most doctors will practice a lifetime and never hear the type of murmur associated with HCM. Also, if Chris had HCM, the heart rates he has ; he would have died for those rates because the diseased heart muscle would never have been able to have coped with rates like that. Chris would have been in an ER screaming in pain and you would have had a group of ER doctors not knowing how to cope with him; treat the arrhythmia and the angina gets worse! You would have been kept away from him and you would have been sure that you were about to lose him.  

[grendslori]

So let us know how things are going for you!

[mamiJ]

hi Grendslori,

She's doing ok...I re-read what I originally posted and I didn't ask the question the way I wanted to.


what I was wondering about the chest pain was not so much as coming from the heart, but from the lungs. With her having an AVSD, I was told before the repair that her lungs would fail before her heart did.

but, as stated before, she has had good echos. I am going to call back the cardiologist just in case.

Thanks everyone!!

[grendslori]

You might want to see if you can get an appointment to see a Pulmonologist. It would be worth checking out.

[donofanalf]

Typically you wouldlungs, from back flow of the vsd. see some pulmonary hypertention if there were issues with the