MITRAL VALVE PROLAPSE and TRANSVERSE MYELITIS: Part II

What is MVP and How Does it Affect the Nervous System?


Mitral Valve Prolapse (MVP) is a condition wherein the mitral valve of the heart is prolapsed (slightly deformed so that when the valve closes, it doesn’t completely seal off the chamber – blood can seep back into the previous chamber.) It’s seldom serious – at least, not in terms of life or death. I think the statistics say only about 1 in 1,000 need surgery – maybe even less than that. The rest of us just have to put up with irritating and quirky symptoms, which are many. They’re different in different people, and not always present at any given time in any one person, thus making it difficult to diagnose. And the fact that it’s not really serious prevents many physicians from paying much attention to it – another reason that it often goes undiagnosed. Lyn Frederickson, MSN, cardiac nurse, and director of the first Mitral Valve Prolapse Center in the world, sums it up well when she describes MVP as “not life threatening, but life-style threatening.”

Most of the symptoms are actually caused by dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The last time I checked, the theory was that the ANS was forming at the same time as the mitral valve, so both were affected. The basic function of the ANS is to keep a balance: bring you down after a high (like meeting an emergency; fleeing from danger); bring you up to where you can function after a low (like relaxing; sleeping). The symptoms range from fatigue, chest pain, and shortness of breath, to migraine, anxiety, and panic attacks – there’s about 30 symptoms, some opposite from the others! That may not seem to make sense – unless you remember that the job of the ANS is to keep a balance. Therefore, if it’s not functioning properly, the extremes will rule! This, of course, makes it even harder to diagnose – it’s not a simple set of symptoms peculiar to only this condition. Many people are never diagnosed. It’s estimated that MVP affects from 10% to 20% of the population. More women than men are diagnosed, but that’s likely only because they’re the ones that are going to notice more frequent symptoms because they’re the ones whose hormones regularly take them up and down, thus requiring a system that keeps them on an even keel. MVP is hereditary, but like many conditions, some people may be more sensitive than others, to actually having difficulties with it.

As already stated in Part I, there's no cure; just learning how best to deal with it. If you even think you might have MVP, it's worth checking it out. Basically, the things you need to do to live with the symptoms are the same things as you would do to live a more healthy life-style. In spite of all their complaints, they say that people with MVP are often the healthiest people around, because their systems just can't tolerate abuse without over-reacting, thus forcing them to live a more healthy lifestyle. That's opposed to other members of the population who can ignore general health principles and seem to flourish - that is until it all catches up with them and it's too late to change - their health has been permanently compromised. So, as irritating as the quirky symptoms may be, there's actually an upside to this 'affliction'. It's just hard to remember that sometimes!


NEXT: Part III, What is TM and How Does it Affect the Nervous System? This is the element that created the Double Whammy!