Cardiomyopathy
Cardiomyopathy can weaken the heart muscle and lead to serious issues. Reid Health offers advanced care to help people with the condition live long, healthy lives.
Taking control of cardiomyopathy
If you’ve been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, you might find yourself experiencing many different symptoms — or no symptoms at all. There are multiple types of cardiomyopathy, and they vary in how serious they are.
People with serious cases of cardiomyopathy have weaker hearts and face significant health risks, such as heart failure and sudden cardiac arrest.
Although cardiomyopathy cannot always be cured, treatments can help control symptoms and keep the condition from getting worse.
What is cardiomyopathy?
Cardiomyopathy is a group of conditions that prevent the heart muscle from working as it should and pumping blood to the rest of the body. Different types of cardiomyopathies harm the heart in different ways. The condition could cause the muscle to thicken, stiffen, or get bigger.
As cardiomyopathy progresses, the heart gets weaker. Over time, the condition can lead to heart failure or arrhythmia, an irregular heart rhythm. Certain types of arrhythmias related to cardiomyopathy can cause sudden cardiac arrest, a potentially fatal condition in which your heart suddenly stops beating.
Women can also be impacted by peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of the disease that can occur up to a year after giving birth or toward the later stages of pregnancy.
why choose reid health
Your heart is in the right place
At Reid Health Heart & Vascular Center, our cardiologists and heart specialists offer personalized, expert care, so you can manage cardiomyopathy close to home. We offer many advanced treatment options, including implanted devices and surgeries that help you recover quickly.
Types of cardiomyopathy
Cardiomyopathy can damage your heart in many ways, depending on the type you have.
- Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy: When heart muscle in the right side of the heart becomes fatty or scarred, causing irregular heartbeats
- Dilated cardiomyopathy: When ventricles in the heart enlarge and weaken
- Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: When the heart muscle enlarges and thickens, blocking the ventricles and making it harder to pump blood
- Left ventricular noncompaction: When the left ventricle develops smooth and loose muscle, weakening the heart’s ability to pump
- Restrictive cardiomyopathy: When the ventricles stiffen, leaving them unable to relax and fill with blood to pump to the body
- Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (broken heart syndrome): When extreme stress damages and weakens the heart muscle
Symptoms of cardiomyopathy
Some people don’t have any symptoms of cardiomyopathy. When symptoms appear, they can be similar to those for other types of heart disease, including:
- Chest pain
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Fainting
- Heart murmurs
- Irregular heartbeats
- Shortness of breath
- Swelling in the belly, feet, or legs
Cardiomyopathy treatments available at Reid
Cardiomyopathy treatment can help control symptoms if you have them, treat or manage a condition that could cause cardiomyopathy, prevent the disease from getting worse, or prevent serious complications.
At Reid, you have access to many treatments from our experienced cardiologists and heart specialists, including:
- Alcohol septal ablation: This procedure shrinks the part of the heart that has become too large.
- Catheter ablation: Ablation uses mild heat or extreme cold to destroy tissue. It can stop abnormal electrical signals that cause irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias).
- Implanted devices: Pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators can also disrupt electrical signals that cause an arrhythmia.
- Medications: Newer and existing medications can help treat symptoms or help you manage high blood pressure or diabetes, two conditions that can cause cardiomyopathy.
- Septal myectomy: This is a type of open-heart surgery to help improve blood flow. Your surgeon will remove part of the heart muscle that has become too thick.