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August 13, 2005
The Heart Doctor
This morning we took Dashiell to the hospital for his appointment with the pediatric cardiologist, Doctor Crowe. He had an EKG (electrocardiogram) and an echocardiogram (using a sonogram machine)... thankfully non-invasive procedures, unlike the last time we were at the hospital when he was treated like a tiny human pincushion.
It turns out that there are two issues contributing to the heart murmur that Dr. Liz heard at his pediatrician's visit earlier this week. Both are residual issues from pregnancy, as it involves valves that are open during pregnancy when the fetus is still getting placental bloodflow, and the valves usually close or start closing at birth.
One is a minor issue which means there's a valve that hasn't closed (all the way) between the two upper chambers of his heart. That should apparantly resolve itself over time, and I believe wasn't too far open to begin with.
His other issue is called Patent Ductus Arteriosus. The ductus arteriosus is a shunt that connects the pulmonary artery to the aortic arch. At birth this shunt is supposed to close. In Dashiell's case it hasn't. If left untreated it can cause the left side of his heart to become overworked, and it can result in heart failure. Thankfully it's easily treated and/or fixed.
Because it's still early days, and because Dashiell is otherwise breathing without problems, his heartrate is fine and he's feeding properly and gaining weight, the cardiologist is just going to monitor him, as this also could just resolve itself over time. If it doesn't, or if he starts showing signs of it becoming a problem (problems with breathing, feeding or weightgain) then further steps will have to be taken. The first alternative would be medication, and if that doesn't help, then he'd have to have a minor surgical procedure, cardiac catheterisation, to close the hole.
So for now he's being monitored by the pediatric cardiologist, and we go back in 3 weeks for a check-up. Apparantly most of the time symptoms start showing up between 6 weeks and 3 months, and he'll be 7 weeks by then, so it could be the cusp of when things start to happen, if they do. Hopefully this will resolve by itself soon and there won't be a need for medication or anything more severe.
I guess Dr. Doom Liz was right in sending us off the cardiologist. Thankfully when she diagnosed the murmur this week she hadn't been as doom and gloom and blunt as when she'd told us to get his thyroid function checked, as I wasn't stressed out about this visit like I had been with the blooddraws for potential hypothyriodism.
Posted on 04:18 PM to: Dashiell