90 Miles From Tyranny : If You Are Not The Grinch, Then Enlarging Your Heart May Not Be Such A Good Thing...

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Saturday, November 27, 2021

If You Are Not The Grinch, Then Enlarging Your Heart May Not Be Such A Good Thing...



 

1 comment:

TVMA Doc said...

The scary thing is how myocarditis kills. It doesn't typically enlarge the heart or even cause noticeable symptoms, although it can. The way it kills, and why it can take years to do so, is by killing small islands of myocardial tissue. These can lead to re-entry types of arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia that can be fatal. The same is seen after other causes of cardiac injury such as myocardial infarction, and death from arrhythmia is one of the more common reasons for slightly delayed death in that condition.

The difference is that a heart attack typically causes a large amount of local damage, so it is quite often noticed immediately, and that island of dead tissue is often large enough that it won't induce a delayed arrhythmia-either you get one during the acute event, you die from the event itself or you find out how much limitation you have afterwards.

Myocarditis will often leave small islands of tissue that are like landmines awaiting their chance to sow destruction. You may not realize that there was even any inflammation until the sudden death months or years later. This is why calling the myocarditis cases "mild" and stating that patients "were in the hospital only a few days" is outright lying. There is no way to know how seriously damaged an individual's heart might be until the sudden event that may come years later.