Myocarditis: symptoms, causes, treatment

Myocarditis of the heart is an inflammatory disease of the myocardium (the so-called middle heart membrane). The cause of inflammation can be, most often, viruses, sometimes - bacteria. Regardless of the cause, the disease is caused, fibrosis can develop in the cardiac muscle. When untimely treatment is often observed necrosis (death) of tissues.

Myocarditis can occur after infectious diseases, such as parotitis (mumps), measles, HIV, chicken pox, and the like.

Sometimes it develops in patients with severe burns, bronchial asthma, thyrotoxicosis.

Influenced people with alcohol, alcohol abusers, drug addicts. Physical factors that provoke the disease may be overheating or hypothermia, radiation, electric shock.

In viral infection, the viruses multiply in the cells of the middle shell of the heart, causing its inflammation. Then they leave the heart and begin to move with blood throughout the body. The patient may initially feel a malaise that resembles the symptoms of influenza: low temperature, pain in the joints or muscles, skin rashes.

If the disease is caused by bacteria, the myocardium will become inflamed with the products of their vital activity.

Myocarditis can develop during the course of an infectious disease or after its termination.

Interestingly, most often myocarditis is affected by twenty-forty-year-old men.

Sometimes with long-term treatment with any drugs, toxic-allergic myocarditis can occur. Symptoms of the disease:

• Heart palpitations, sometimes fainting
• Increased temperature
• Low blood pressure
• Weak, unfilled pulse

When these signs appear, especially if they have arisen after another disease, you should immediately seek the help of specialists. If the doctor suspects myocarditis, the symptoms of which are confirmed by examinations, then urgent and thorough treatment is needed. Otherwise, malaise can go into a severe form of congestive heart failure.

The diagnosis is assisted by an electrocardiogram, radiography, in which the condition of all organs of the chest, echocardiography and blood tests are carefully studied.

For the recognition of infection usually take smears from the throat. In the most difficult cases, a diagnostic method can be used by scanning with gallium-67, which helps to locate and recognize the infection.

What should I do if my doctor diagnosed myocarditis? The treatment is aimed at maintaining normal cardiac activity, eliminating the causes of the disease, fighting with arrhythmia. It implies a strict bed rest, especially at the time of exacerbation.

The patient is prescribed a diet consisting of easily assimilated foods rich in vitamins. Meat in the period of exacerbation is excluded altogether. Eat very often, but in very small portions.

To cure myocarditis, the symptoms of which are caused by viruses, cardiologists prescribe antiviral drugs (cytostatics). With bacterial infection, antibiotics are prescribed. Sometimes, depending on the characteristics of the patient, in parallel can be prescribed desensitizing and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Gradually, the patient's condition is changed, allowing him to get up first, then move on to a normal lifestyle.

For prevention, a cardiologist can prescribe medications that will normalize the metabolism in the middle heart.

Regardless of the severity of the disease, myocarditis, the symptoms of which have once manifested itself, require rehabilitation in a specialized cardiological sanatorium and a long (3-4) year follow-up of the attending physician.

The further way of life should be only healthy. Smoking, alcohol and drugs are not allowed. It is recommended to observe the regime, walk, if possible - to exclude stressful situations.