Can you live a long life with a leaky heart valve?

If the condition remains untreated, you may lose your life in the next three years after encountering the symptoms. However, after undergoing surgical valve replacement, you can improve your quality of life. Patients with a replaced valve may have excellent long-term survival.

Does a leaky heart valve shorten your life?

With a leaky valve, sometimes not enough blood gets pumped to the rest of the body. Heart valve leakage/regurgitation can force the heart to work harder to do its job. The condition can lead to heart failure, sudden cardiac arrest, and death.

How long can you live with a leaking valve in the heart?

Around 75% of patients with unoperated aortic stenosis may die 3 years after the onset of symptoms. The long-term survival following surgical valve replacement in patients over 65 years of age is excellent and up to the first 8 years is comparable to the matched general population.

Can you live with a leaking valve?

Left untreated, leaky heart valves can cause serious complications, including heart failure, atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat) or pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lung's vessels). The good news is that valve problems are often quite treatable.

What causes leaky heart valve lifespan?

Trauma can cause valves to leak, as can infection of the heart valve or damage from rheumatic fever. High blood pressure, pulmonary hypertension, and an enlarged heart can also cause leaking valves. Some heart surgeries to correct heart defects in children may result in leaking valves later in life.

Leaky Heart Valves - Causes, Symptoms

How do I know if my leaky heart valve is getting worse?

As aortic valve regurgitation worsens, signs and symptoms may include: Shortness of breath with exercise or when you lie down. Fatigue and weakness, especially when you increase your activity level. Heart murmur.

Does exercise help leaky heart valve?

Everyone with a leaky heart valve can benefit from daily exercise, like walking. Before engaging in competitive or contact sports, people with severe valve regurgitation should talk with their doctors.

How long can you live with valve regurgitation?

Widely disparate estimates of long term survival in patients with mitral regurgitation—between 97–27% at five years—have been reported.

How do you treat a leaking heart valve naturally?

Is a leaky heart valve common in older people?

A leaking heart valve in elderly people is one of the common heart valve disorders. Also known as Mitral Valve Regurgitation, a leaky valve does not close properly which allows blood to leak through.

Do heart valves deteriorate with age?

Heart valves can also slowly degenerate over time, a condition known as degenerative valve disease, which affects the mitral valve more often than the others.

Is heart valve disease fatal?

Many people live long and healthy lives and never realize they have a mild valve problem. However, left untreated, advanced valve disease can cause heart failure, stroke, blood clots or death due to sudden cardiac arrest.

How long can you live without a heart valve replacement?

For aortic valve-replacement patients in general, this loss was 1.9 years. Without treatment, however, the mean survival for these patients is two to three years.

Is leaky heart valve considered heart disease?

Overview. Mitral valve regurgitation is a type of heart valve disease in which the valve between the left heart chambers doesn't close completely, allowing blood to leak backward across the valve. It is the most common type of heart valve disease (valvular heart disease).

What foods should I avoid with leaky heart valves?

Can you reverse heart valve problems?

“However, once a heart attack occurs and heart muscle dies, we can't regenerate those cells.” Another form of heart disease, valve disease, can also have irreparable consequences, says Dr. Nissen. “Once a heart valve becomes stiff and calcified, there is no way to restore the valve's flexibility.

How long can you live with mild aortic regurgitation?

Chronic aortic regurgitation often presents a paradox for clinicians. On the one hand, patients can safely live with mild or moderate forms for years. On the other, the condition is progressive, with an insidious process that national guidelines may not catch before irreversible heart damage occurs.

How often should a leaky heart valve be checked?

Most of the time, a leaky mitral valve does not require treatment. Since it is a slowly progressive disease, yearly follow-up is a necessity to monitor for development of heart failure. Evaluating the severity of the problem frequently will make the decision to surgically repair or replace the faulty valve easier.

How do you fix a leaky heart valve without surgery?

While this condition can lead to serious health problems, it is treatable – even more so these days due to a minimally invasive procedure using the MitraClip. This FDA-approved device allows physicians to fix faulty heart valves without doing open heart surgery.

What food is good for heart valve?

Ideally, your diet should include: Meat - and/or meat alternatives such as eggs, tofu, legumes and nuts. Fish - 2 serves of oily fish per week such as salmon, mackerel or sardines will help you get plenty of heart healthy omega-3 fats.

What medication is used for leaky heart valve?

There are three main types of blood thinners that patients commonly take: anticoagulants like warfarin or heparin, antiplatelet drugs like aspirin, and fibrinolytics like tPA (tissue plasminogen activator).

What does a leaking heart valve feel like?

A leaky heart valve may go unnoticed because frequently, a leaky heart valve causes no symptoms. If a heart valve leak is severe, it can lead to symptoms such as breathlessness and cause the heart to fail. The symptoms of congestive heart failure mainly include: Shortness of breath of various degrees.

What are the signs of needing a heart valve replacement?

What happens if you don't replace a heart valve?

Those problems can cause shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, fainting, and other symptoms. If you don't get the valve replaced, it can be life-threatening.

Is heart valve surgery risky?

An aortic valve replacement is a major operation and occasionally the complications can be fatal. Overall, the risk of dying as a result of the procedure is estimated to be 2%. But this risk is far lower than the risk associated with leaving severe aortic disease untreated.