Information on Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM)

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy is a heart condition that causes the left ventricle of your heart to abnormally thicken and harden. This makes the heart have difficulty pumping blood and getting enough oxygen to the heart. It is a genetic disease and is usually passed down from family members fairly consistently; it can skip generations however, and then show up in a younger family member.

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy is the largest known reason for deaths within young athletes and children. One of the major reasons for this is due to the difficulty of screening for this disease. Unless one is looking for it, the small heart murmur they hear maybe passed over as minor. Many people do not know they even have this heart condition because symptoms can actually never show. Once the symptoms do show however they usually do not come on lightly. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy can also cause other concern within the heart like Sub Aortic Stonosis or a Sub Aortic Membrane, which is a thin covering at the bottom of the aortic valve that can obstruct blood flow, and then cause heart failure, or a heart attack.

Hank Gaithers is a popular athlete that had Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy but unfortunately was unaware of it and its symptoms, and then he died suddenly on the court. HCM is actually responsible for 48% of sudden deaths in African American Athletes and 26% in Caucasian Athletes. However athletes are not the only people dying suddenly without knowing they even had a heart condition.

Arrhythmias feel somewhat like you have a fish in your chest wiggling, no specific pain just flutters. They also make you catch your breath and can cause fainting and dizzy spells. Another symptom to watch out for would be shortness of breath which many pass off as asthma or too much exertion yet it is something entirely different. The cause of sudden death has not yet been explained. Specialists have found that the more you exert yourself the higher chance you have to dying. The only option for many athletes who realize they have this disease is to completely pull out of their sports, due to the lack of permanent solutions.

There are a few surgeries cardiologists perform to aid people with HCM. The first is called alcohol ablation. This is where they go into the specific part of the heart that has thickened and hardened and inject that area with a small bit of alcohol, essentially causing a localized heart attack. This softens the heart muscle and allows for easier blood flow. However the risk is great and it is not permanent. Specialists can also go in and cut some of the muscle away, however unfortunately it will grow back. Yet the positive in this would be you would have a few years without severe symptoms which is worth the open heart surgery for many people.

Although HCM is a very serious threat it can be survived, as long as the disease is caught. A general practitioner is not always the right person to assess for this either because of the subtleties of the condition. For athletes and people alike a more intense and thorough screening should be used while checking for heart diseases for conditions like HCM as well as many others. Unfortunately in this case exercise is not great for cardio, instead it is a killer.