What does heart murmurs mean?
Heart murmurs are sounds made by turbulent blood in or near your heart. Your doctor can hear these sounds with a stethoscope.
Heart murmurs can be present at birth (congenital) or develop later in life.
Heart murmurs can be harmless (innocent) or abnormal.
Symptoms
If you have an innocent heart murmur, you likely won't have any other signs or symptoms.
An abnormal heart murmur may cause the following signs and symptoms, depending on the cause of the murmur:
- Skin that appears blue, especially on your fingertips and lips
- Swelling or sudden weight gain
- Shortness of breath
- Chronic cough
- Enlarged liver
- Enlarged neck veins
- In infants, poor appetite and failure to grow normally
- Heavy sweating with little or no activity
- Chest pain
- Dizziness
- Fainting
Causes
A heart murmur may happen:
- When the heart is filling with blood (diastolic murmur)
- When the heart is emptying (systolic murmur)
- Throughout the heartbeat (continuous murmur)
Conditions that may cause rapid blood flow through your heart, resulting in an innocent heart murmur, include:
- Physical activity or exercise
- Pregnancy
- Fever
- Not having enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to your body tissues (anemia)
- Too much thyroid hormone in your body (hyperthyroidism)
- Phases of rapid growth, such as adolescence
Innocent heart murmurs may disappear over time, or they may last your entire life without ever causing further health problems.
Abnormal heart murmurs
In adults, abnormal murmurs are most often due to acquired heart valve problems. In children, abnormal murmurs are usually caused by structural problems of the heart (congenital heart defects).
Common congenital defects that cause heart murmurs include:
- Holes in the heart.
- Cardiac shunts.
- Valve calcification.
- Endocarditis.
Source:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-murmurs/symptoms-causes/syc-20373171
