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Hi everyone! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this (nor was my cardiologist!), but last week the results of my echo showed that my left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) was GONE and my ejection fraction was normal now!!! The problem, is that I don’t know which of the gazillion medications I was taking did the trick (or perhaps a combo). Has anyone else had their LVDD go away? It’s about time that some good news rolled in! 😉
How often do you have to be seen by a cardiologist? I went for the first time, and my echo showed only a mild tricuspid valve regurgitatin, a trace of mitral valve regurgitation, and trace pulmonic insufficiency. I was born with a heart murmur and my mom was told it was innocent. I don’t have those records and they would thirty plus years old. I guess I have a baseline now and all my measurements were within “normal”. What do I need to monitor, look for, and how often? Thanks.
I think this is another case of “everyone’s different”, but I’m on an every 6 months follow-up with my cardiologist now. It was more frequent at first, because of the LVDD, and because she was willing to “try a few things” (bless her heart). They will want to give you a ‘good once over’ to start with (they will pay particularly close attention to all aspects of the echo). Then, depending upon whether they find anything wrong, what it is, what medications (if any) are required, they’ll set up your next follow up. I just requested the raw data from my last two echos, because she said my ejection fraction had also improved, but I don’t remember what it was! I’ll post it when I receive it, OK? I know a few of us have COPD, congestive heart failure, and even pulmonary hypertension. My mom’s pulmonary hypertension seemed to come on over-night, and a few of us talk about how we ‘feel’ as though we have it off and on. We wonder if that is even possible. I don’t know, but I DO recommend a good cardiologist and regular echos. Please let us know how yours comes out! 😉
Oh, Lab-Scientist-Lady, after consulting Wiki (ha), it looks like a vetricular ejection fraction between 55 and 70 is normal. Mine was 63. And we want to watch our aortic root size! My kids and I look soooo Marfanoid, AND we had some signs of Loeys-Dietz syndrome, so until genetic data was acquired, we had to closely watch our aortic root size. Did you see my video on this? I double checked my doctors’ readings for my son (yikes). We are in the clear with Marfans and Loeys-Dietz, but watch my son’s aortic root closely because he was off the nomogram! 😉
Thank Dr. Diana,
I was worried after you and someone else said that the LVDD was seen but y’all were not notified. My cardiologist said to come back in a year, but he said that before my echo. Therefore, I wanted to make sure I was not missing something. As you said we must be our own advocate. I have the raw data and I was looking over it, and even though they called and said it was normal I wanted to make sure. I have dealt with chest pain and my heart racing for a long time. All the stuff you live with, and deal with. I hate that we have all these weird symptoms but all the test come back “normal”. I guess it is hard because I am a scientist and I like the data to back me up. After all doctors never want to go out on a limb with out concrete data. I was in to my PCP yesterday discussing things with her, and she never wants to go beyond what she does. For example I showed her my abdominal wound and ask her if I could start swimming again. She looked at it, but then stated that she did not want to make that determination and to leave it to my surgeon. Really? The wound is closed I just wanted confirmation. She is a doctor and should be able to answer that.
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