Rheumatic heart disease a condition in which the heart valves are damaged by rheumatic fever, which is an inflammatory disease that can affect many of the body's connective tissues, especially those in the areas of the heart, joints, brain and skin. Rheumatic fever can affect anyone however it does usually tend to occur in children from five to fifteen years old.

About Rheumatic Fever

Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that can develop as a rare complication of untreated or undertreated strep throat infection. Symptoms of rheumatic fever generally appear within a few weeks after a strep throat infection, and even in untreated cases of strep throat only a very small percentage of people actually develop rheumatic fever, so it is not something that you need to worry about too much.

Symptoms of Rheumatic Heart Disease

There are a variety of symptoms of rheumatic heart disease that are basically telltale signs that you are affected, and these symptoms vary greatly from one person to another. Often the damage that is caused to the heart here is not immediately noticeable, but eventually a damaged heart can cause serious and even disabling or life-threatening problems.

Surgery for Rheumatic Heart Disease

If you find out that you do have rheumatic heart disease, then one of the options that are most likely going to be recommended by your doctor is surgery for rheumatic heart disease. Surgery for rheumatic heart disease is indicated in order to decrease valve insufficiency when heart failure persists or worsens during the acute phase after aggressive medical therapy, and mitral valve repair has also shown to be feasible in children with chronic rheumatic mitral valve disease.

Surgery for rheumatic heart disease is generally only used in advanced cases, as surgery may be necessary to repair or replace the damaged valves. The worst part of all is that because rheumatic heart disease most often strikes children, this can make the surgery process that much more difficult, because children are a lot more susceptible to problems during surgery.

Prevention

Of course the best method, in order to avoid surgery for rheumatic heart disease the best you can, is prevention. The best defense against rheumatic is to prevent rheumatic fever from ever occurring, and by treating strep throat with penicillin or other antibiotics, doctors are usually able to stop acute rheumatic fever from developing. For the people who have already had rheumatic fever, they are basically safe, although they are more susceptible to attacks and heart damage.