Enlarged Heart Symptoms Why They Are Not Enough

A very common misconception about enlarged hearts is that it is a medical condition. Yes, it is a medical condition, but it is also a symptom of another more serious disease. Having an enlarged heart, usually first detected through a routine chest x-ray, will actually alert your physician that you may have a more serious underlying condition. In this article, we will be discussing the symptoms within a symptom and how misleading they could be.

Enlarged heart is also known as cardiomegaly. The symptoms for this condition may vary. There are some people who do not present any symptoms whatsoever, but there are also some people that manifest a few signs. Enlarged heart symptoms are actually very nonspecific. They are so general that they can be mistaken as symptoms of another condition. Examples of those symptoms would be the following:

Difficulty in breathing and shortness of breath
Dizziness
Cough
Chest Pain
Abnormal heart rhythms or arrhythmias
Edema
Easy fatigueability and/or activity intolerance

Symptoms in cardiomegaly can easily be related to the condition. For example, an enlarged heart can cause abnormal heart rhythms because it is having problems pumping blood. Your normal, resting heart rate will be around 60 to 100 beats per minute. In the case of a person with cardiomegaly, it will be slightly higher than that. You see, disease conditions can affect blood flow, therefore, needing the heart to put on additional effort to pump blood to the different areas of the body. This “extra effort” will cause the heart to enlarge. Enlargement of the heart is not a good thing. Although it is bigger, the muscles are weaker as compared to a normal-sized heart. These weak muscles will try their hardest to pump blood by increasing the number of beats per minute. Once the heart becomes too tired, it will momentarily pause or slow down its beating. And that is how arrhythmias are related to cardiomegaly.

You have to bear in mind, though, that the aforementioned symptoms can also be caused by just about any condition. Arrhythmias, for one thing, can also be caused by alcohol abuse, smoking, and diabetes. The human body is a wonderful and confusing thing. Everything is interconnected, that when you start to analyze one condition, you can just go on forever. Everything is related to, or can be caused by, something that is also related to everything.

Since the symptoms of cardiomegaly are too general, diagnostic procedures are needed to rule out other conditions that may be causing their onset. I have mentioned before that an enlarged heart is usually spotted during routine chest x-rays. This is actually one of the most basic diagnostic procedures that a patient can undergo in order to have the condition diagnosed accurately. Other procedures will include electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, stress test, CT Scan, MRI, and many others.

It is important to know a lot about a specific condition because it will aid you in making informed decisions. The internet is a very rich place for information regarding health and medicine, so you should try look into other websites if you feel like you need a more in depth explanation.