Everything about heart murmuring

Heart murmuring is a sound that the blood makes as it flows thru your heart. The doctor will use a stethoscope to listen to the beat. If your heart murmurs, your doctor can hear that, because there will be a swishing noise with the heartbeat. It might be scary to know that you or anyone in the family has a heart murmur. But this is very usual, especially among kids and this is also harmless. The murmur is commonly called innocent heart murmurs. Your heart is absolutely fine if the murmuring is the innocent one. ½ of the kids have this and they typically outgrow it.

The reasons for an abnormal heart murmuring

There are abnormal murmurs that may be signs of a heart ailment, in kids, the abnormal murmuring of the heart is typically caused by troubles when they are born like the valve of their heart do not work properly or there is a hole in between the chambers. In adults, this may be because a damaged valves of the heart. The valves are usually operated like a one way gate, thus it helps in the flow of the blood in just 1 direction between the chambers of the heart and into the outer part of the heart.

If an ailment or an infection caused damages to the valve, it may also scar it and it can affect the works and functions of the valve. It might not be able to close adequately once again, so the blood will pass through without control at all. It may also be narrow or tight to enable the blood to go through it. If the damaged valve of the heart can’t close anymore, there will be a problem that is known as regurgitation. If the valve cannot allow enough amount of blood to go through, this will be called stenosis.

The valves of the heart can be damaged by certain heart ailments or by infections too such as rheumatic fever and endocarditis. But of course, the valves may wear in time as people age and that may also cause damages too.  Some cases of heart murmuring may be because of a thicker texture than the normal one. If the muscle of the heart becomes too big, it can affect the normal blood flow and it may cause heart murmuring.

Heart murmuring diagnoses

Heart murmurs may be detected by a doctor during a physical exam. If the doctor hears the murmuring sound, he/she can tell if it is innocent or not by the loudness of the noise, the part of the heart where the sound came from and the type of the sound. The doctor will surely look for other signs of heart problems as well like shortness of breath if you are active, irregular heartbeat, fluid buildup and others. If the doctor things that you may have a heart problem, you will be asked to see a heart specialist better known as cardiologist to further assess your condition thru an x-ray, ECG or cardiac catheterization.