Can You Exercise With Myocarditis?

Myocarditis refers to an inflammatory disease of the human’s myocardium and it mainly takes place because of viral infection. Clinical studies have revealed that viral myocarditis in young children or athletes vary from minor isolated form of chest pain to severe form of cardiac failure because of dilated cardiomyopathy.

Here, dilated cardiomyopathy implies a severe condition requiring invasive cardio-pulmonary support, along with cardiac transplantation, extracorporeal assistance or sudden death. Particularly, chest pain is a common problem in children and it usually remains in benign form. However, in 2 percent of kids, the problem has cardiac origin, like for instance coronary anomaly or valvular and a myocarditis.

Considering the aforementioned facts about myocarditis and chest pain problems in young children/athletes, doctors have given the following recommendations related to involving in any type of exercise.

When doctors identify your myocarditis problem for the first time, they recommend you to curtail any type of physical exercise completely until and unless they understand your condition. In most of the cases, doctors recommend staying out from even low intensive exercise until the functions of your heart’s left ventricle i.e. the large chamber responsible to pump out the blood to other body parts comes back to its normal state and you do not experience any abnormal heart rhythms.

Furthermore, you should never reinstitute any physical exercise even when you do not have arrhythmias or possess normal ventricular function, but signs of persistent heart inflammation. Along with this, you have to consider a few other factors, like for instance possible causes of your myocarditis problem and identify whether you have transient infection or myocarditis in its progressive phase. A few causes may increase your risks related to sudden death than others.⁽¹⁾

As the condition of a person with Myocarditis improves, doctors recommend for moderate exercise for safety, as it is beneficial. Accordingly, a patient should start any exercise carefully and only under the instructions given by a good cardiologist. For most of the patients, doctors prescribe for cardiac rehabilitation to make sure myocarditis patients do exercises in any controlled setting. Exercise has anti-inflammatory effects and various positive effects on the overall immune system of a person to assist in fighting with viruses.

Once a myocarditis patient returns to perform physical exercise, doctors recommend for only moderate level of exercises to avail the benefits associated with inflammation. On the other side, extreme exercise results in various risks including the risk related to increase in the heart-damages associated with viral myocarditis.⁽¹⁾

Doctors recommend strictly avoiding competitive exercises at least for a period of 6months and then, start with low intensive exercises even under the recommendations of a good cardiologist. Furthermore, if you were an athlete, you have to undergo with different tests, like ECG, holter monitoring, stress ECG and similar others before you should return to your regular physical activities. Furthermore, a few of the cardiologists also recommend for an MRI test for your heart depending on your specific cardiac health condition. However, athletes with scarring in their heart often remain at relatively higher risk related to abnormal rhythms and sudden death. Because of this, doctors do not recommend them to return to any competitive exercise.⁽¹⁾

To conclude, we should say that regardless of the symptoms and specific factors, patients suffering from myocarditis should strictly remain out from any type of physical exercise at least for initial 6 months period. Later on, doctors recommend for the best types of physical exercises based on your recovery from the problem and it further depends on many factors, which include scarring or any other persistent type of cardiac damage. Other than this, you have to formulate your exercise program based on your discussion and consultation with a reputed cardiologist, while you should start your program with cardiac rehabilitation. This lets you monitoring your activity in the safe way early while you start with your physical activity.

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Also Read:

• Myocarditis or Inflammation of Heart Muscles: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, Experiences
• Can Myocarditis Kill You?
• Who Is At Risk For Myocarditis?
• Can Myocarditis Cause Sudden Death?
• Can Pneumonia Cause Myocarditis?
• Can Vaccines Cause Myocarditis?
• How Long Does It Take To Recover From Myocarditis?
• Is There Any Surgery For Myocarditis?