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20873083 tn?1556219152

Has my hypertrophic cardiomyopathy progressed?

I have had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with obstruction since 20. I have had some symptoms since 17. I'm 23 years old now. I've done two echocardiographs so far, one at 20 (the first time, when I was diagnosed) and one at 21 (a routine one). The LV wall thickness was 17-18 mm and the LVOT Pressure Gradient was 71 mmHG.
Now, I did echocardiograph after 2 years of ignoring the disease, and the parameters raised: LV wall thickness is 21 mm and the resting LVOT Pressure Gradient Is EVEN 136 mmHG. I was very anxious during the exam and I got more obese during the 2 years of ignoring the disease.
Did THOSE TWO factors cause the progression? And is it irreversible? Is it progression at all? Is this serious?
Please answer because I'm very anxious. I'm too young to be this much ill.
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Avatar universal
Has surgery been discussed?
Helpful - 0
11 Comments
No, the doctor said that MRI scan and Holter exam should be performed ...
Hes right to start with to see what's going on... but then surgery will be discussed.  Its probably fixable:)
Thank you very much for the answer. Please just tell me is the resting LVOT pressure gradient (during panic attack) of 156 mmHG very high? Is my situation very serious?
136 mmHG by the way, sorry
I don't think you are dying this second.  I just think it needs to be addressed.  I know you feel terrible and scared try to just relax and get all the testing done.  In the meantime no reason not to get a second opinion as well.
Just one more question. Is it possible the LVOT gradient to be worsened for a moment if you have strong panic attack at the moment of the echocardiography?
By the way I inherited this condition from my father who inherited from his father and noone of them died, they lived normal lifes, just had some symptoms sometimes. I never had unexplained syncope as well...
I doubt panic caused your results... but I am very optimistic you will live a long healthy life if treated appropriately!
Thank you very much! I'll do the exams and follow my doctor's advices. I just hope that I won't need to be done a surgery... I don't have much money and I don't know which hospital near me performs alcohol septal ablation (I live in Macedonia, Balkan by the way, it is in the South Eastern Europe).
Oh , gotcha... well let me know what they find out!
I will!
Avatar universal
have your family members also been given EKGs and Echoes? Does anyone else in your family have HCM? The worst thing you can do is to stress out over this, even though it may be hard for you at this point. Believe it or not, the absolute worst time to be diagnosed with HCM is actually in childhood before the growth spurts of the teen years because the heart muscle thickens very quickly during those growing years. A lot of patients don't even know they have the disease until they are in their 50's and 60's. In the scale of things, HCM is pretty young....it first started being seen, I believe, in the 1960. At this point, there is a lot more things that can be done to help you. When you stress out, catecholamines are released into the blood stream....that's to help you run or fight from any threat. That can cause more problems with the heart's electrical system so you can get arrhythmias, or irregular heart beats. ALL people have premature beats, that NORMAL. Those beats are the normal "back-up" system of the heart. The premature beats are of concern based on type and where they originate in the heart. Follow the advice of your cardiologist and don't just "live" on MedHelp looking for advice. My daughter, Kristy had (what we thought for most her life) was Concentric Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy; all the walls of both ventricles were thickened to the point where she didn't have much chambers left. She also had several different electrical problems with the upper and lower chambers of her heart as well; she was first diagnosed at 6 years of age, by twelve she was having heart attacks because the walls were so thick, the blood supply was cut off to the muscle. She received her first heart transplant at 22 years of age and she died while awaiting a second heart and kidney. It turned out that she didn't have HCM at all but an extremely RARE form of Glycogen Storage Disease only known as PRKAG2; it is too rare to have given a name. Take care          
Helpful - 0
2 Comments
My mother didn't have problems with her heart, but my father had, although he was never diagnosed because he didn't do any examination. My father was always telling me that he had frequently tachycardia during his young adulthood. Two times he had heart rate of 250 bpm. That's all I know. He left us when he was 50...

By the way when does the LV wall stop to thicken in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?
Sorry for the delay. To answer your question, there really isn't any way to know this. The fact that you made it through your childhood and teens without having symptoms of heart disease is a GOOD thing. The walls tend to grow the thickest during the ''growing up years". By the time my daughter was diagnosed at 6 years of age, her walls were already the thickness of a grown man. They continued to thicken right up until the time she had a transplant; most people with HCM never need to have a transplant even though she was seeing transplant doctors when she was sixteen. This is an individual process....everyone is different.
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