Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

[ThighThighofthigh]

My Dad died in October and his death certificate listed the above plus chronic kidney failure and chronic hypertension.

He was 87 and was increasingly ill and frail during the last year following a flash pulmonary embolism. It was an expected death at home where the fluid essentially drowned him (expected, but horrible).

Since his mid-50s cardiologists had been saying he had a genetic heart defect, he had stents in his 70s and was on various medications.

Until his late 70s he was very active playing slow tennis and jogging (shuffling) plus a lot of walking.

I'm wondering about this heart defect, his Dad and brother both died early 50s from 'weak chests' (decades ago) - could it have been the same thing?

I'm puzzled by the hypertension too as he had dreadfully low bp.

Speak to your GP. The lack of family history may be a problem but I went to my GP with some minor concerns (resting heart rate and BP not reducing after significant weight loss and improved fitness) and that with family history was enough for them to send me for a cardiologist referral.

I had a 3 day ECG (normal), an echo and subsequent MRI and was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. Some digging revealed this was what my uncle (alive), father (deceased), grandmother (deceased) and great grand mother (deceased) as a very minimum had. I had genetic testing which was inconclusive. As a result my son will be screened every 2-3 years.

If you can't get a referral, could you afford a private ECG and echocardiogram? That should be sufficient to identify any signs of HCM.

A couple of days before the flash pulmonary embolism he had a flu jab. When he when in to hospital it was all heart and no oedema. One of the Drs said this indicated a catastrophic infection. After that very precarious hospital stay he appeared to be on the mend for a couple of months then a very slow decline with increasing oedema.

Was it pulmonary hypertension? That's different to generalised hypertension

I'm not sure, i know the death certificate said chronic hypertension which puzzled me as i would have thought it should say hypotension. His bottom bp was very low, about 50.

Maybe I'll write to his cardio?

I checked some old medical notes which say apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy