Heart Inflammation - Living With - Living With

Follow up with your doctors as instructed. Your exact follow-up will depend on the cause and severity of your disease. Ongoing medical care may include:

• Continuing all treatments as directed by your doctor
• Getting regular check-ups and follow-up tests with your doctor
• Getting regular dental visits

Return to Treatment to review possible treatments for endocarditis, myocarditis, and pericarditis.

Your doctor may recommend the following to monitor your condition and the effectiveness of the treatments:

• Blood tests for detecting the bacteria causing endocarditis may be performed every 24 to 48 hours until the infection is gone from the bloodstream. For pericarditis, blood tests that look for increased levels of inflammation—C-reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)—may be repeated periodically until the levels return to normal. Your doctor may also continue anti-inflammatory treatment until these levels return to normal.
• Cardiac MRI may be repeated to monitor myocarditis.
• Echocardiography (echo) allows doctors to look at your heart after treatment and have images to use for comparison when monitoring for any changes. This test may be repeated periodically to monitor your heart function.

Make sure you are familiar with the signs and symptoms of your condition, such as chest pain, cough, fever, and shortness of breath. Call your doctor with any new symptoms.

Repeat events of heart inflammation can happen. People with endocarditis have a lifelong risk. Repeat events of pericarditis are common in the first 18 months after treatment. People with myocarditis are at risk for a repeat event for years after the first occurrence.

To prevent complications, it is important to take these steps:

• Continue all medicines as directed by your doctor, including those for complications such as heart failure or arrhythmias or for medical conditions that may have contributed to your endocarditis, myocarditis, or pericarditis. Treatment for endocarditis and pericarditis often lasts weeks. You may need to take some medicines throughout your lifetime. If prescribed, lifelong use of antifungals for fungal endocarditis or colchicine for pericarditis may lower your risk of a repeat event.
• Do not exercise until given permission by your doctor. For myocarditis, this may be several months or longer after treatment.
• When possible, avoid known causes and risk factors.

Serious complications can include repeat events and new or worsening heart failure. Tell your doctor if you experience fever or chills, or symptoms of heart failure, such as shortness of breath, fatigue, or swelling in your legs.

Review the symptoms and complications of the different types of heart inflammation from endocarditis, myocarditis, and pericarditis.

Depending on the cause and amount of heart inflammation, you may need treatments to manage complications.

• Anti-inflammatory medicines to decrease the chance of recurrent pericarditis. These include colchicine, aspirin, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen and indomethacin.
• Implantable cardioverter defibrillator or pacemaker to control irregular heartbeats. Placement of these devices should wait until after the acute episode of myocarditis, because the heart may heal completely.
• Pericardiectomy, or the surgical removal of the pericardium. It is a final but potentially successful option for people who have certain types of pericarditis, such as recurrent pericarditis that does not respond to treatment or constrictive pericarditis that is end-stage.