What is the Recovery Period for Stress Cardiomyopathy?

Stress cardiomyopathy refers to broken heart syndrome and it indicates a health condition, where intensive physical or emotional stress may cause severe and rapid weakness in heart muscles commonly known as cardiomyopathy.

Indeed, it is a life-threatening condition takes place followed by various emotional stressors, like fear, grief (death of any loving person), surprise and extreme anger. It may even take place by following various physical stressors to one’s body. These include seizure, stroke and difficulty in taking breath, like emphysema or asthma flare and significant bleeding.

Stress cardiomyopathy has more or less similar symptoms, as you find in case of heart attack. These include-

• Sweating
• Chest pain
• Breathing shortness
• Dizziness
• Vomiting and nausea
• Weakness
• Heart pounding sensations or palpitations
• Low blood pressure
• Congestive heart failure.

Stress cardiomyopathy may sometimes become a life-threatening condition in some of the cases. Since the syndrome has severe weakness of heart muscles, the patients suffer from low blood pressure, congestive heart failure and life-threatening abnormalities of heart rhythm. However, the positive thing in this case is that the condition of a person improves in no time.

Pre-hospital Care: Since the problem of broken heart syndrome or stress cardiomyopathy mimics the acute coronary syndrome, doctors initially give pre-hospital care to the patients. In this case, doctors follow specific established protocols to evaluate and transport patients with acute coronary syndrome or chest pain.

Inpatient Care: Once diagnosis of the problem completes and doctors confirm about broken heart syndrome problem in patients, they undergo for the appropriate cardiology service. Treatment options in this case are highly empiric as well as supportive. Initially doctors prescribe for beta-blockers type of medicines to their patients and at the same time, recommend for serial imaging studies for patients. On the other side, the patients dealing with the problem of LV i.e. left ventricular thrombus problem should undergo with anticoagulation treatment.

Outpatient Care: Besides medications, the patients should undergo with serial echocardiograms to make sure about resolution of stress cardiomyopathy. In addition, the patients require close follow-up and proper care with cardiologists during the weeks after they undergo with the diagnosis process. Along with this, you should go for annual clinical follow-up, as doctors are still unaware of natural history and long-term effects of the problem.

Consultation with your cardiologist is very much essential, in which they recommend for coronary angiography as the major diagnosis related to broken heart syndrome. Patients also require transferring to any hospital with a cardiologist as well as any cardiac catheterization lab.

If patients suffering from stress cardiomyopathy continue to manifest the problem of acute chronic syndrome, doctors recommend following medications under emergency care-

• Nitrates
• Beta-blockers
• Nitrates
• Enoxaparin or heparin
• Aspirin
• Platelet glycogen inhibitors
• Clopidogrel
• Morphine

On the other side, the patients dealing with CHF i.e., Congestive Heart Failure require diuretics and those with cardiogenic shocks require inotropic agents and IV fluids resuscitation.

Long-term prognosis of various patients dealing with the problem of stress cardiomyopathy has proved to be excellent. Heart of a person thus returns to its normal condition within only a few weeks or up to one month without causing any permanent damage.

Most of the broken heart syndrome or stress cardiomyopathy patients have succeeded to obtain full recovery within a period of only one month. Hence, it is essential for you to consult with your doctor about the recovery period, for which you have to continue with your medicines after you recover.

Also Read:

• Cardiomyopathy – Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment
• What is the Life Expectancy Of A Woman Who Has Cardiomyopathy?
• How Long Does A Person live After Being Diagnosed With Cardiomyopathy?
• How Do You Fix Cardiomyopathy?
• Can Exercise Help Cardiomyopathy?
• Can Cardiomyopathy Go Away On It’s Own?
• How Do You Get Tested For Cardiomyopathy?