Heart Inflammation What Is Heart Inflammation?
Heart inflammation is your body’s natural reaction to an infection or injury to the heart. To protect your body, your white blood cells send chemicals that increase blood flow to the affected area, which can lead to redness, swelling, or pain. Inflammation can affect the lining of your heart or valves, the heart muscle, or the tissue surrounding the heart. Inflammation in the heart can lead to serious health problems, including an irregular heartbeat (also called arrhythmia), heart failure, and coronary heart disease.
Many things cause heart inflammation. Common causes include viral or bacterial infections and medical conditions such as autoimmune diseases.
Heart inflammation can happen suddenly or progress slowly and may have severe symptoms or almost no symptoms. You may have different symptoms depending on the type and how serious the heart inflammation is. The treatment your doctor recommends may depend on whether you are diagnosed with inflammation of the lining of your heart or valves, the heart muscle itself, or the tissue surrounding the heart. You may be treated with medicine, procedures, or possibly surgery.