My usually very active 14 year old struggled to do an exercise test at school after a virus and antibiotics and was sent for an ECG, which "wasn't completely normal" and then an echocardiogram which showed some trival mitral regurgitation and mild aortic regurgitation but otherwise heart structurally fine. Given the exercise struggle (is legs basically collapsed under him and he had to lie down) the consultant at GOSH has said to come back in 3 weeks and do a stress echo .... googling everything has got me worried and wondered if anyone else had anything like this .... he said the stress echo was precautionary because of the event and to see what the aortic regurgitation was like when the heart was under pressure?? Up to this point I had what I thought was a fit and healthy child ... now I am constantly listening to his breathing and trying not to show I am worried - should I expect the echo under stress to be worse ... what should I prepare myself for. Report seemed to say the aortic valve was structurally normal??
aortic valve regurgitation - British Heart Fou...
aortic valve regurgitation
Hi, I am sorry this sounds very stressful. I would just advise not to google at all as you will scare yourself (I need to take my own advise) and the cardiac nurses on the online chat are really helpful so you could use that function if you are worried.
Hi! I’m so sorry you’re going through this with your 14 year old, it can be so scary and foreign. I have congenital heart disease with many cardiac anomalies, two of which are a mitral valve prolapse and a bicuspid aortic valve. Which essentially means both valves leak and show significant regurgitation. I too was very athletic in school and did suffer some similar symptoms you are describing. Try not to google, as hard as that may be. It really isn’t helpful, and will only cause more stress. The best thing you can do is write down all of your questions and any symptoms your 14 year old is having. A stress test is safe, they have a team watching closely and monitoring you the entire time. It sounds scarier than it is. You also get to control how long you can continue on for. You’re typically on a treadmill or a bike, depending on ability and safety, and hooked up to cardiac leads and a blood pressure cuff. They may try and repeat an echo afterwards. It’s great they are being thorough. I’m 41 now and have a very complex cardiac case, but I’ve still managed to live a very wonderful healthy life. Cardiology care has come a long way. I can only imagine how terrifying this all must be for you and your family right now, but that is great they are getting the necessary tests done to get an accurate picture of what is going on. Sending you support from afar! Wishing you and your family all the best!
thanks so much for replying.
Been struggling to work out what might be wrong as the echo report said the heart is "structurally normal" with a "normal aortic valve" ... so then it isn't clear what is causing the regurgitation so I can't work out if that is good news or bad! I must have read the letter a million times.
thankfully my son hasn't really asked - maybe he doesn't want to know, he thinks he is just having rest from football for a few weeks while he gets over a virus ... but eventually I expect, when we know more, we can tell him more. I think he is rather sensibly taking the approach of he'll wait to know and then we can see .... although it's so hard to get any communication out of a teenage boy that you just don't know! We had no idea anything was wrong ... 5 weeks ago he had run his PB 5k at 22 mins, 3 weeks ago he couldnt run 1k in 6 minutes in a school fitness test .... v odd. And therefore frightening ... thanks so much for replying. Lovely to hear you have been ok despite the challenges you must have had.
hi - I’m sorry to hear that you are going through this. My daughter is a cardiac patient at GOSH. She was diagnosed with a bicuspid aortic valve when she was 5. She has done the stress test. It was carried out in the gym there and she was on the bike. It was all very safe and they had many specialists in the room checking all her vitals. She had ECG wires, blood pressure cuff etc and also had a tube in her mouth that she had to breathe in and out of as she exercised as they were monitoring her exhalation. She basically had to increase the intensity of her exercise until her heart rate reached a certain level. She was fully monitored throughout the whole process by many specialists. As a parent, it’s obviously creates anxiety watching, but it gives them really valuable information about how the heart is operating and they know exactly when to stop the test, plus the patient can obviously request to stop. Good luck! My daughter has led a very sporty life, despite having this condition and some leakage of her valve.
thanks so much for responding - that's actually really nice to hear and hoping for the same sort of result. Until 3 weeks ago he was doing all kinds of support inc an intense premiership football camp so I am hopeful he can at least go back to some sport once we have done this ....
Update: so the stress test went well and he is back at sports. Have to go back in 3 months to "review the level of aortic valve leakage" and then discuss a monitoring plan .... so good ish news
"Normal aortic valve" might just mean tricuspid instead of bicuspid (the later are found in a minority of the population and tend to leak a lot worse). So if your son has a tricuspid then that's an initial "win".
My (tricuspid) aortic valve and mitral valve were found to leak when I was about 40. (They could have been leaking for 10 or 20 years prior; I wasn't much of one for doctors at the time.) Anyway, I was monitored for the better part of 20 years with nothing more onerous than a yearly echo and the odd MRI every 5 or 10 years. Still went skiing at altitude in Colorado every year. (Admittedly my cardiologist recommend against the altitude part, but I grew up in Colorado so what's one to do? He asked the next year if I had ignored his advice and when I confessed he admitted that yeah, he would have too. 🤣)
While I was never symptomatic, my heart finally started to showed LVH (when it starts to grow bigger to compensate for the leakage) earlier this year. Since that can cause other issues I got my mitral valve repaired and my aortic valve replaced in Sept. (I'm now 60, so not a bad run before having to undergo corrective action.)
thanks so much for replying ... test the consultant called if an "incidental finding that will just need monitoring for now" so taking that as a win and yes he said it was all structurally normal ....
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