Inflammatory Heart Disease

Just as the name implies, inflammatory heart disease involves inflammation of the muscle tissue of the heart. This disease comes as a result of an infection.

Most of the time the infection came from other parts of the body such as the teeth. The location of the inflammation determines the type of inflammatory heart disease. There are two main types of the disease, each with its own symptoms and location.

Types of Inflammatory disease

Two main types of inflammatory heart that exist are, endocarditis and myocarditis.

Myocarditis comes from an inflammation of the heart wall's middle layer, the myocardium. It's not a common condition but most of the time it comes from a viral infection. However, it's treatment depends on the origination of the disease.

Myocarditis often follows bacterial and viral infections, so it often begins after a wide assortment of diseases. It may be part of an immune system disorder or come from exposure to toxins, chemicals or radiation. As you can tell, finding the cause so that you can treat it is imperative to treatment of the disease.

The danger with myocarditis is a potential weakening of the hearts pumping action. If it doesn't have enough power, it can't supply the body with the much needed blood. A heart that doesn't pump adequately can cause sluggish blood and that leads to clots. Clots of course, lead to stroke and heart attack.

Endocarditis affects the heart's inner lining. It often is the result of bacteria or virus from other parts of the body. In some cases, a bad tooth might spread infection to the heart through the blood stream. It then attaches itself to any damaged area in the heart and creates the condition. This is why dentists often question whether you have any heart condition and if you do, put you on a series of antibiotics before they perform dental work.

If you don't treat endocarditis it causes permanent damages with life threatening conditions. One of the biggest potential is for the inflammation to destroy the valves of the heart. In most cases, people that have healthy hearts seldom experience endocarditis.

Their Symptoms and Diagnosis

The symptoms of myocarditis include wide variety. Some of the symptoms are fatigue, rapid heartbeat and difficulty breathing. Other symptoms may be fatal arrhythmia, which is an abnormal heartbeat or even death. Shortness of breath during physical activity, fluid retention that causes swelling of the ankles, legs and feet, fainting and general flu like symptoms such as a sore throat, body aches, diarrhea and joint pain may also accompany the disease.

People that develop endocarditis start with symptoms that are flu-like within two weeks after infection. They might have a low-grade fever and feel drowsy or fatigued. If their infection comes from a more virulent strain of bacteria the fever is higher and more distinct symptoms of an illness present themselves. The disease shows up faster, often within just a few days. The patient experiences chills, fever, weight loss, pain in the joints, night sweats, shortness of breath and a persistent cough, tiny red and purple spots under the skin and bleeding under the fingernails.

People Most at Risk

There are no specific risk factors for those people with myocarditis, although children tend to fare better when they have the disease.

With Inflammatory Heart Disease, people with heart damage, artificial heart valves, previous cases of endocarditis, heart defects, heart valve problems after a heart transplant, AIDS, people on hemodialysis or those with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy are also at risk. It goes without saying that those using dirty needles for street drugs or failing to clean the skin before injection also form a high-risk group.

Go to types of heart attack from Inflammatory Heart Disease