High blood pressure

[Bill]

One thing that's a little mysterious about my HCM is that there is no clear family history of it and no other family members who have it.

There are a couple of "suspects", however:

1. My paternal grandmother (who died in 1965 at age 78) always had some sort of "bum heart". My aunt (her daughter) who is now 87 says her mother had "high blood pressure" and that "tired her heart". She was ordered to bed for a year of bed rest by her cardiologist when she was in her 40s. All this sounds kind of HCM-suspicious to me, but I don't know of other symptoms and my aunt is very hard to talk to about things like this -- she doesn't believe that her family could possibly have ANY genetic problems. My question: is high blood pressure (over 200) ever a symptom of HCM?

2. My mother had a mitral valve replacement at age 77 after being diagnosed with CHF. No mention of HCM -- am I right in assuming that a cardiac surgeon would see signs of HCM during mitral valve replacement surgery?

I see my cardiologist today for the first time since being diagnosed in February. Thanks to this board, I have some intelligent questions for him.

Bill

[Pat]

Re: High blood pressure

Bill,

Those sound like great questions for the cardiologist--I hope you asked them! Let us know what you learned, please.

The hypertension/HCM connection interests me, too. I, myself, developed my first symptoms of SOB with exertion in the late-1970s, then developed hypertension in the mid-1980s. After it reached 220/110 I accepted drug treatment. (I had really tried exercise & diet first.) My septal obstruction was not diagnosed until 1999. I am convinced that the hypertension reflected my left ventricle's increasing effort to push blood past the obstruction, though I've never asked a cardiologist about this.

Pat