What is the aortic valve?
The aortic valve is, in a sense, the main doorway in your heart. It’s attached to your heart’s main pump, which is responsible for pumping red, oxygen-rich blood all throughout your body. When it does this like it’s supposed to, your body is happy and healthy and energetic and full of life. The aortic valve leads from the heart’s main pump to a large artery which, in turn, leads to the rest of the arteries in your body. You can see why the aortic valve is so important to your health and happiness; again, it’s the main gateway in your heart and leads to significant and vital areas of your body.
What, then, is aortic valve stenosis?
Aortic valve stenosis is, simply put, a narrowing of your aortic valve. The doorway, in other words, grows smaller. Not as much blood can pump through it as when it first started out. This creates several problems. First of all, your heart is a complicated machine, and like all complicated machines it runs by a certain system of rules and regulations. When something goes wrong, when a rule is broken, when a regulation is confronted with an irregularity, things begin to break down. Now, your heart is a strong machine, and it will compensate when something unusual occurs. In the case of aortic valve stenosis, your heart grows larger. It does this so that it can deal with all the excess blood that’s being backed up due to the narrowing of your aortic valve.
How do I get aortic valve stenosis?
First of all, you get it by being male.
That’s right: males stand a much higher chance of suffering from aortic valve stenosis than do females. Secondly, you can do the sorts of things that lead to any other kind of heart disease. That is, you can smoke, you can drink in excess, you can eat fatty, greasy foods that build up fatty, greasy deposits in your arteries. You can behave recklessly, in other words. But there are other ways of receiving this condition. You can be born, for example, with a valve that has only two flaps instead of three. Your heart will have to work extra hard to pump the blood, and will grow larger as a result. Or, you can suffer from rheumatic fever while still young. Rheumatic fever severely hurts the heart, and can come back to haunt you later.
What are the symptoms of aortic valve stenosis?
It’s important to realize that aortic valve stenosis doesn’t rise up to confront you all at once. You can have it for years and not know it. Thus the importance of regularly seeing your doctor. Symptoms of aortic valve stenosis include dizziness; shortness of breath; faintness; exhaustion; loss of consciousness. Other symptoms include pain in the chest, a chocking sensation, a squeezing sensation, a burning sensation. This particular symptom can spread uncomfortably to your arms and back. Still other symptoms include irregular heartbeat: a fluttering heart: a heart that feels as though it’s skipping a beat from time to time.
How can I get aortic valve stenosis treated?
Again, you need to see your doctor often. He or she can listen to your chest, and, if they hear an irregular heartbeat, take photographs of your valves using a special machine that will show just what your heart is dealing with. Treatments for aortic valve stenosis include medications that will regulate your blood flow and deal with the pain you might be feeling. Other treatments include lifestyle changes such as not participating as actively in sports as you’re used to doing. Other, more dramatic treatments include surgery; you may even need to have your valve replaced.