Heart Murmur

[DrBunsen]

Hi all

My nearly 13 year old Chinchilla has just been diagnosed with a heart murmur (the vet thinks a grade 2-3) - he was appearing a little lethargic, his only symptom, although some of his poos were a little small.

To rule out his lethargy possibly being caused by something else (as opposed to heart disease) he prescribed something for his guts - he has had this for the past two days and seems more like his old self.

But obviously I now know he has a heart murmur which I understand are quite common in chinchillas - an echo has been recommended. One quote I have for this is quite expensive - he is a specialist and goes to a vets not that far from me every three weeks (hence the expense I guess).

Is this the best course of action if my chinnie is now displaying his normal behaviour? Would it be most likely he does not have heart disease, going on that he does not have other very obvious symptoms? Would an echo be conclusive as to what was going on?

Hope you can help.

Thanks

 

[ticklechin]

I have had several with murmurs, a 2-3 usually won't cause symptoms, I had one who lived till 17 with a 3 and it never showed any issues. A class 5 and up will cause issues. There are treatments when this does happen that are quite good but until then I would not worry about it. A echo IMO is a waste of time, when I had it done to a class 5 I was told a high frequency high frame rate ultrasound was needed due to the small features of the heart and rapid heart beat. I paid for it before and learned the chin has a heart murmur on the mitral valve, made no difference that I knew that.

If the chin is back to normal I would do nothing at this point.

 

[DrBunsen]

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

So will an echo detect heart disease? Or will it more likely just tell me the cause of the heart murmur ie like you said it was on a certain valve? And then like you said actually doesn't make a difference knowing that?

I want to do the right thing without spending a lot of money that would actually be a waste of time and of course I would do that, knowing it would be helpful for my chinnie. Trying to weigh all that up

Thanks

 

[ticklechin]

Heart murmurs are for the most part genetic so knowing what kind doesn't make a difference with treatment if it gets to that, you will be doing supportive care not curing so imo any further diagnostics is superfluous.

 

[DrBunsen]

Ok - thanks for your advice