Enlarged
Heart Causes
High blood pressure is one of the most common enlarged heart causes
and many people have this condition without even knowing it. When you
have high blood pressure, your heart pumps harder to get blood around
the body, which makes it become enlarged.
Occasionally,
it could happen that a person is diagnosed with an enlarged heart for
no
apparent reason; this is called an idiopathic diagnosis.
It simply means that there seems to be no apparent cause.
You may have no symptoms in the early stages of cardiomyopathy, but as
the condition progresses, your heart may get larger to try to do its
job more effectively, which is to pump blood around your body.
Most
cases of an enlarged heart have
diagnosable reasons for developing.
Sometimes babies are born with congenital heart defects that can
cause an enlarged heart, because these defects can affect the way the
heart works, making it work harder to try to do its job.
-
There
are four valves in your heart that keep blood flow moving in the right
direction. If you've had a condition like rheumatic fever, if you have
a heart defect, or if your heart has been damaged in other ways such as
through cancer treatment side effects or use of medications,
it may become larger
because of this damage. When valvular damage occurs, your heart has to
try to keep the blood moving effectively, and may become enlarged as a
result of trying to do its job.
-
If you have an irregular
heartbeat, your heart likely doesn't pump blood as effectively as it
would if you had a normal heart rhythm.
Because your heart has to do
extra work as a result of the arrhythmia, it may become enlarged. With
pulmonary hypertension, you have high blood pressure specifically in
the artery that connects your heart and lungs. With pulmonary
hypertension, your car will need to pump blood harder to try to move
blood between your heart and lungs. With pulmonary hypertension, the
right side of your heart is what enlarges, specifically.
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If
you have anemia or a low red blood cell count, you don't have enough
healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen to the cells, where it is needed
in your body. If your anemia becomes chronic, you can develop an
irregular or rapid heartbeat that will probably be one of the enlarged
heart causes. Whether your thyroid is underactive (hypothyroidism) or overactive
(hyperthyroidism), this can lead you to have heart problems, including
a heart that's enlarged.
-
With hemochromatosis, your body
doesn't use iron properly.
It builds up in your body, including in
various organs like your heart. This can cause your left ventricle to
enlarge because of your
weak heart.
-
Amyloidosis
occurs when protein builds up in your heart muscle. With those abnormal
proteins circulating your bloodstream can be deposited in your heart,
which can interfere with its function. That can cause its enlargement.
As
you can see, there are a variety of reasons your heart can enlarge; if
you are diagnosed with it your doctor will determine which of the
enlarged heart causes is possibly affecting you and subsequent
treatment so that you can manage the condition as effectively as
possible.
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