Relatives and Friends of ASD Patient

Comment

Comment by 3Princesses on July 17, 2011 at 10:33am

My 4 month old daughter (soon to be 5 months old) was diagnosed with ASD when she was about 2months old or so.  They said in the hospital that one time they heard a murmur but after that they never heard it and dismissed it, they figured it was just the normal baby hole that's there and it just wasn't fully closed and when they checked again they figured since they didn't hear it, it was closed.  We took her to a pediatrician at 4 days old for the normal check up she said she didn't hear a murmur, ended up switching drs due to something unrelated to her heart, and we found our pediatrician we have now, he heard the murmur said wait a week and come back see if we still hear it.  We waited, came back and he still heard it, so he wanted us to schedule a visit to a ped cardiologist.  Took her they did an EKG first just to see what her heart beat looked like and they noticed the murmur on there so we had the ECHO done.  I'm so thankful we did because that's how we discovered she has a medium ASD, but her dr said that it should close on its own.  Since then we've gotten her shots and that her pediatrician hasn't heard the murmur at all so that's a hopeful sign that it may have closed! (crossing our fingers).  We take her back in August for her heart check up, I'll update with what we find out then :)

 

Comment by Kimberly Black on January 20, 2011 at 2:26am

As a mother of a 13 year old boy who recently had ASD closure I would strongly encourage every parent with a child diagnosed with a 'heart murmor' to ask your pediatrician to send your child for an echocardiogram, no matter what! My son has always been an active kid, playing football since he was 7, baseball since he was 4, basketball since age 8, and riding horses his entire life. His pediatrician and numerous other doctors have always mentioned hearing a faint murmor, but would always say "there's nothing to worry about, I can barely hear it". He was always complaining of shortness of breath, so the docs gave him an inhaler. He had a chest x-ray when he was 9 because I noticed the left side of his chest was slightly protruding out further than the right side, and the result of the x-ray was that his heart was a little enlarged. Once again we were told "it's nothing to worrie about"! At age 12, our medical insurance change so I had to take him to a different doctor. After taking him to the same docs for 12 years this was not an easy task for him or myself, but THANK GOD this had to occur, because the new doctor noticed something wasn't right after only a couple visits. Dr. C sent him for an echocardiogram at a local hospital which took us 2 months to get the results of. After 2 months and no phone calls or letters in the mail, everything must be just fine....right? Well no. The Pediatric Cardiologist told us he could have been one of those kids who collapses on a football field or basketball court and dies from what they call the 'Silent Killer'. So please please please have your child tested with an echocardiogram and be persistant in finding out the results.