Mitral Valve Prolapse.

[PiggyLJ]

Hello there. Interested in hearing from others with the same problem (and with regurgitation, too) and how you manage working full time?

[lifelover55]

Hi PiggyLJ. I was first diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse in 1991 when I was 30 years old and in the late 1990's I had an echocardiogram which showed mild regurgitation. I worked full-time plus overtime and led a very active life for many years. I started having problems with breathlessness and tightness in my chest after exertion (climbing stairs, jogging) about 3 years ago.

I had an echocardiogram in 2015 which showed I still had mild mitral valve regurgitation but also showed I had mild aortic stenosis (I was born with a bicuspid rather than tricuspid aortic valve).

My recent echocardiogram in March of this year showed that the aortic stenosis was severe and the mitral regurgitation was moderate to severe. I knew something was wrong recently when I started to be abnormally tired and my breathlessness and chest tightness was getting worse. I just didn't think it was my valves because of the okay echo in 2015.

Anyway, I got very ill with sepsis or pneumonia (they didn't know which) and a very high fever and was taken to A&E where I had a cardiac arrest. Thankfully, I am here - and the arrest led them to do an echo finding the valve insufficiencies. I had open heart surgery on the 24th of April to replace my aortic valve and repair my mitral valve.

I don't know if this helps you but please feel you can ask me any questions. How do you feel during the day - do you have any symptoms such as breathlessness (there are other symptoms). When were you first diagnosed with the prolapse? What does your cardiologist say about working full-time?

[Kelbob]

Hi!

I’m also interested in this too, I was diagnosed in February this year with moderate to severe MR and moderate/severe LV dysfunction - my diagnosis came as a complete shock, I was working full time in a pretty stressful job- I have been off sick since diagnosis but will need to return at some point.... I have been lucky really ( well if you call this diagnosis lucky at 38!!) as a recent mri shows significant improvement of LV function since commencing meds... so it looks ( hopefully) like I’m starting to recover...

still exhausted and napping during the day- not sure how that will work when returning to job!!!! However like I said I was working full time right up until I was diagnosed and coped, although looking back I think I had got used to always feeling awful!!!

What do you do? Are you at work at the moment? What sort of symptoms are you experiencing? I guess it probably depends on the sort of job (physically demanding/stressful, employers etc) as to how able to cope we are - I guess time will tell. ( apologies for the long post 😂 ) Xxx