Two small murmurs

I’m not really “concerned” about this right now, but did want to write about it…

Back in December, I had an EKG done as part of my overall checkup, to replace the hypertension meds I had been on since delivery (techtalk: I was on methyldopa, which is the only kind they could prescribe during pregnancy… it’s a vasodilator, which basically relaxes the blood vessles to lower pressure… it did the job, but probably wasn’t the BEST for whatever was/is causing my hypertension).

The EKG had some “borderline abnormal” patterns, according to my GP, so he changed the prescription (to lisinopril) and said to come back in a couple months to see how that was going. I came back in February, and the lisinopril (an ACE inhibitor only… I’ll leave the curious to Wikipedia) was less effective than the methyldopa — most readings were in the 140/90 range, which is still above acceptable, so I was switched to the generic equivalent of lotrel (which is an ACE inhibitor plus calcium channel blocker) Not sure what the added features might indicate, but the results are MUCH better. 125/85 with a heartrate of 80. Yay for that!

So on Monday I went in for an echocardiogram (a sonogram of the heart) and I got to breath on a nebulizer then blow into this thing. The breath results were fine… no cardiopulmonary issues. There were two very slight murmurs on the echo, though. The doctor explained that this was blood leaking back out from the heart where it came from, when the heart pumps to push the blood into other parts of the body. He said he THOUGHT he heard it through the stethoscope, but it was confirmed with the echo, and it’s nothing to worry about for now, but that I needed to do a stress test, to put the various medical pieces together. That got scheduled for July 30th, and the official echo results (running them past the cardiologist) will be ready on June 15th.

He explained this is something I could have been born with, or it could have developed, and that lowering the blood pressure plus losing weight (I’m down about 30# since first seeing him in December) will help reduce the murmur further. The two murmurs were in the tricuspid and [couldn’t make out the other location’s name].

I know this kind of thing would scare lots of folks, but, thankfully, it’s not upsetting me.