worried about apical HCM or other heart disease

[Jacqueline84]

Hi,
I am a thin healthy 25/F and the the only known condition I suffer from is anxiety.  I was recently diagnosed with a grade 1 systolic heart murmur at the left sternal edge during a routine physical. I had an echo done and they told me it was totally fine, just some trivial tricuspid regurg, but nothing to worry about. They told me there would be no follow-up.
My only concern is that my grandmother died in her early 50's of what I have been told was asthma, but nobody talks about it much. I was just wondering if she could have been misdiagnosed with asthma and there is some sort of cardiomyopathy in my family that could have been missed on the echo? I have read about apical HCM and that it can be missed?? There is no other known heart disease in my family and I am asymptomatic. I am also quite thin (50 kg/110 lbs and 5'5).
Thanks,
Jacqueline

[Lee Kirksey, MD]

Hello
Its not clear what other conditions your grandmother may have suffered from and what her lifestyle or risk factors were. So there may have been a number of issues that exacerbated her asthma. ie long smoking history with COPD and pulmonary hypertension. Anything is possible but it is probably unlikely that she had a cardiomyopathy masquerading as asthma. In your case, our technology is very good these days to assess heart architecture and function. Perhaps your mind would be more at ease if you sought a second opinion or made arrangements to have a followup annually to assess your murmer. I am a firm believer that anxiety can have a true impact on the development of disease so I would recommend applying appropriate concern keeping reality in focus. Good luck and best of health.

[Jacq1984]

Hi,
Why would I need an annual follow-up for this? I thought an innocent murmur was just that, innocent....?? Do they change over time?
Thanks,
Jacqueline