What is Endocarditis, Symptoms, and Treatment
What is Endocarditis?
First of all we need to understand what exactly is Endocarditis. Endocarditis is the inflammation of the heart which is caused due to infection from bacteria. The hearts inner lining, which is called the endocardium, gets inflamed due to infection and makes the heart loose its efficiency.
It is hard to detect endocarditis at the start since the symptoms of this disease are not that severe and can get ignored as usual day to day illness.
Symptoms
Some of the symptoms associated with this illness are :-
- Fever
- Cough
- Shortness of Breath
- Nausea or vomiting
- Muscle and joint pains
- Night Sweats
- Loss of appetite
- Pale Skin
- Swollen legs and feet
- Unexplained loss of weight
- Heart murmur
- Blood in urine
- Enlarged spleen
- Red or purple spots under the skin or eyes due to ruptured capillary vessels
As you can see from the list above that many of the endocarditis symptoms are of common flu and therefore detection of it at the start is a hard one. At times, it also gets diagnosed as pneumonia. At a later stage, the patient shows other severe symptoms which are not associated with the flu. Therefore, the patient gets checked for other diagnosis and comes to know that he/she is suffering from endocarditis.
The signs and symptoms of endocarditis varies from person to person and their appearance and severity also varies to each person. The seriousness of endocarditis symptoms depends on the heart condition of the patient. If the person has a healthy heart then the effect of the infection is less severe. However, if the person is already suffering from any heart ailment then it would be more severe. Such people who already have an underlying heart condition should be very alert and consult a doctor immediately if they suffer from any of the symptoms.
Click Here to learn more about the different types of Valvular Heart Disease
Treatment
Now comes the most important part: How can the condition of endocarditis be treated?
Well, there are 2 options for treating endocarditis :-
- Antibiotics:- Since it is an heart infection caused by bacteria, the first and foremost treatment which is suggested is by using antibiotics which can help reduce the inflammation of the heart and make it recover from the infection.
- Surgery:- In cases where endocarditis goes on undetected for a longer period of time or where the heart damage is more, it cannot be controlled or improved by antibiotics only. Therefore, the immediate course of endocarditis treatment is surgery in which the infected heart tissue is removed or if there is any fluid collection then it is drained. In extreme cases, the heart valves are damaged beyond repair that they are replaced.
Although different options are available and is curable, it still is very important to take good care of your body and avoid any types of infections. In case you feel that you may suffer from endocarditis, it is important that you get an early detection of your problem as that can lead to better treatment.