Injection Fraction

[asn11520]

My husband is 55 year old white male diagnosed with cardiomyopathy 7 years ago with an injection fraction of 44 at that time. He is permenantly disabled and on multiple cardiac meds. The only signs that he shows is fatigue, recently he had a chemical stress test. Results were injection fraction of 45, no blockage. My qustion is, does this mean only half of his heart is working? And what kind of life expectancy with somebody with this diagnosis?

[gcarmell21]

Im a 30 year old white male diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation from 7/2011.  My heart dr.  said my heart was beating like a v6 instead of a v8 and my EF was at around 55%.  i just got done with my 1 year echocardiogram and now he says EF is 35 to 35% and heart is like a 4cylinder instead of an 8.  i was on diltiazem 120mg for the first year now he added 2 more meds.  its scary.  your husband and i have a lot of simular heart issues.  i also have sleep apnea and the doctor thinks my heart was weakened from alcohol but they aren't positive.  We should stay in touch on here exchanging information.  Feel free to ask me anything.  Greg

[kenkeith]

Ejection fraction (EF) is the amount of blood pumped into circulation with each heartbeat.  If the EF is below 29%, it is considered in the heart failure range...meaning the supply of blood/oxygen is probably less than the demand and the heart (left ventricle) will enlarge in an attempt to meet the demand and eventually contractions will become even weaker and there will be congested heart failure (blood backs up into the lungs causing congestion (edema)).

All of the heart is working, but there may be segments of the heart wall that has impaired heart cells and contractions are weaker than normal. Often the heart muscle is damaged due to lack of oxygen to the segment that is impaired.  Because the stress test didn't reveal any ischemia (lack of blood flow) usually due to blockage of coronary arteries, the underlying cause for a low EF can be heart muscle damage due to virus, drugs, medication, etc.

[asn11520]

dialated cardiomyopathy

[crystalhanzelka]

I do know that normal EF is 50-65.  So 45 is not all that bad.  I do know that there have been people post on here with EF of 15.. which is severe.   What kind of myopathy does he have?