Hebe thinks it was saying "I'm a little hungry, can we get this over with, my body needs to eat"

Those weren't the exact words she used, but you get the gist.... :D

Aw good luck with this Monster.
Always better to know rather than not.

My brother was born with a heart murmer. Then he got whooping cough. My Mum genuinely thought he was going to die from one or the other, but he was absilutely fine and we all forgot about it.

He still has it apparently - I think it must be one of the "innocent" ones. The fact I don't even know much about it shows it can't be a problem.

It's worth investigating further. But don't get upset just yet.

I've been told twice that I had a heart murmur. (The first time was at age 18 for my college entrance physical.) And many other times that I did not have a murmur.

Plus, you'll notice that I'm still here. ;)

The pediatrician found a heart murmur in my daughter a couple years ago at a regular checkup. So we took her to get an ultrasound to have it checked out. That was actually pretty freaking cool for the nerd in me, because you could clearly see the heart pumping in great detail and all the valves opening and closing. The machine can do all sorts of timing tricks that map out the murmur. Sort of like using a timing light in an engine. Anyway at that visit, the pediatric cardiologist told us that it was nothing to worry about and that it might even go away. At a later pediatric checkup, the doctor couldn't hear it anymore.

It was a little nerve racking between the first doctor's visit and the ultrasound, but then everything was cool.

I had heard that heart murmurs could be spread, but that turned out to be a rumor.

a heart rumor is a tough thing to stamp out once it gets going.

There is no murmur, says our ped. she says theres a split beat on S2 which is nothing to worry about, as it cannot be heard when she holds her breath. It's relatively common. (that means the second part of the beat sounds like two beats together in simple terms).

So she's not about to expire on the pool deck and is cleared to climb Everest. Thanks for all your kind thoughts and words, this is exactly what I logically expected but dared not hope to be the outcome, just in case....

Really pleased to hear it. Or not as the case may be.

Awesome news, I knew it all along :)

Glad it's nothing. And glad you got it seen to right away!

AHEM

1. They do quickie medical exams for sports to catch shit like this.

2. Then you go see a specialist

3. You are either glad you had the initial exam, or...

4. There's not a problem.

So there's no problem with *any* of this. It isn't alarmist, its just caution.

Great outcome, Monster. Pat the rugrat on the head fer me.

When I was in my early twenties, one of my closest friend's brother dropped dead playing football. No previous health problems. Heart attack, dead before he hit the ground. He was 21.

Now when I say no previous health problems, I mean that he'd just been to his GP for the usual coughs and colds. Who knows what might have been detected had someone actually listened to his heart.

I'm all for preventative medicine and health checks. I've been asked back for potential abnormal cells after a smear test. Turns out the original test was "contaminated" (evil nurse was rough with the speculum and made me bleed). But cervical cancer is a killer - big in the news in the UK at the moment because a reality tv star has it and is in chemo.

I know you were trying to soothe Monster, LJ. But some things do bear checking.

I thought lj's comments were fine, don't worry. I too hoped it was alarmist BS.

Most of those kids have a thing called IHSS, idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, now know as Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). There can be other sudden causes such as a sudden abnormal arrhythmia due to an unknown conduction defect in the way the heart beats such as WPW syndrome. Rarely would any of this be caught by a simple external exam or detection of a murmur.

Fair enough - I don't know enough about it. I've no doubt this was explained to his parents at the time - I had no reason to know.

BTW I didn't think LJ's comments were offensive in any way, just thought they were a little... blase. In that really minor indicators can and do save lives. I'd say false alarm rather than alarmist and careful rather then bullshit. Happy that YMMV and happy that it was completely unnecessary.