# Grade 3 heart murmur



## rhino (24 December 2010)

My friend's horse has just been diagnosed with a grade 3 heart murmur. He has suffered from a virus on two occasions this year, has been quite poorly.

Owner is obviously worried, ecg is being done after Christmas but does anyone have any experience of this?

Horse is a 15.2hh 18 year old tb x welsh D hacking horse.


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## Dirty_D (24 December 2010)

I've had a grade 4 but she was 30 years old and retired off when we found out. She used to get a filling between her front legs which was our first realisation of something being up then the vet confirmed it.

sorry not much help really 

Have you tried googling it?


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## Bryndu (24 December 2010)

Blimey... I didn't know they came in grades but...

The 7 yr old C that I part own started to fall when being schooled. After the 6th fall, (I didn't appreciate what was happening to him as I thought he was just tripping until the last fall, when we almost had a rotational), I decided to get the vet. It used to happen after 10 minutes warm up as this is when the blood is at it's most oxygenated.
Mr vet came and diagnosed a heart problem. It was beating 3 instead of 2, and then missing a beat at rest and in work.
We spoke to a heart specialist in Bristol (name escapes me - sorry) and he said it is probably caused by a virus and there are two options, PTS or wait and see.

We gave him a year off, and after 3 months he had a disgusting black discharge from both nostrils which obviously indicated he had been poorly, then after a year we stressed him on the lunge for 10 minutes both ways (have to say, thought I might need a new heart after all that running around!), whilst wearing a heart monitor and all was clear.

Big decision then, whether or not to get back on! Bit the bullet, very scary as having had 6 falls, paranoia level was set at 100! got back on and havn't looked back.

Hope this helps.
Bryndu


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## ImogenBurrows (24 December 2010)

roodolph said:



			My friend's horse has just been diagnosed with a grade 3 heart murmur. He has suffered from a virus on two occasions this year, has been quite poorly.

Owner is obviously worried, ecg is being done after Christmas but does anyone have any experience of this?

Horse is a 15.2hh 18 year old tb x welsh D hacking horse.



Click to expand...

Just giving the grade alone is not useful TBH - what valve? does it radiate far? is on contraction (systole) or relaxation (diastole) of the heart beat? Are there any associated heart rhythm abnormalities?? Louder on the right or left side of the chest? 
If I heard a grade three aortic valve murmur that reduce with exercise I wouldn't worry so much as grade 3 mitral valve murmur in an event horse with a irregular rhythm as well which is serious. 

Louder murmur mean greater blood turbulence, which often comes from a smaller valve or heart defect, and this doesn't always correspond to being "worse".

An ECG won't really tell you anything about murmur, only about rhythm, so far more use to get echocardiography done (scan heart) TBH.

Also doesn't the horse still have a virus? If so, I'd wait until it is better and re-listen as murmurs to get louder and quieter as the horse is well/poorly.  e.g. colics often have a Physiological murmur as the heart is working harder at this time and makes a "flow murmur". These often go away again. 

Food for thought. Most grade 3 murmurs are commonly left sided diastolic murmurs and loudest over the aortic valve.  If the horse is for pleasure, then this is unlikely to be a big issue.  Best to get further tests to confirm though!!! 

Happy Xmas

HTH
Imogen


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## EstherYoung (24 December 2010)

Our Spud developed a murmur this season, which is a bit scary but we're trying not to panic about it. When it's there, it's quite loud, but very regular and there doesn't touch wood seem to be anything else dodgy going on - no problems with his recovery rates or performance.

He's been fitter than he's ever been this year and both we and the ride vets strongly suspect that it's just that his heart has developed extra capacity. We were going to get him scanned over the winter but when our vet came out he couldn't find anything wrong - ruddy typical, but would fit with the fitness/heart capacity theory as his fitness had dropped off a bit by that point.

I understand that there are harmless murmurs and sinister murmurs, and that a lot of horses have some sort of murmur because their hearts are so big and powerful they rarely work in a completely textbook fashion. I know the theory, but it doesn't stop you going 'rah' when you find your horse has a murmur though.

I've found the vets quite like murmurs though - they've all called each other over at rides to listen to Spud's 'musical heartbeat' as apparently it is very interesting


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## rhino (24 December 2010)

Thanks all!

Imogen - that is all the information I have, my friend lives several hundred miles away and is a bit panicky! Horse is still suffering with the virus and vet will be out again after Christmas, so hopefully things will have settled a bit.


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## JanetGeorge (25 December 2010)

EstherYoung said:



			I've found the vets quite like murmurs though - they've all called each other over at rides to listen to Spud's 'musical heartbeat' as apparently it is very interesting 

Click to expand...

My vet is on a warning not to even HEAR a heart murmur in any of mine!

A few years ago, he was vetting a very promising ID filly of mine - to complete her grading.  He heard a murmur on the exercise bit - couldn't make his mind up about it and initially thought it was just a "2 year old squeak"!  THEN he went home and read his cardiology book - BIG mistake!!  He decided it was 'sinister' and would have to be investigated.

So we loaded filly - for the first time in her life - and took her down to Bushy to see Mark Patteson - who wrote the book!  We couldn't get her OFF the bloody lorry!  So she had to have her heart scanned standing ON the lorry (it was fine!)  And once we got her home it took us two hours to get her off the lorry!!

She was worth the trouble though - 3 lovely fillies in a row - and fingers crossed for a 4th!

Re OP though - I had a 21 year old TB broodmare who lost weight badly - rearing a foal and pregnant again.  A grade 4 murmur was found - vet was pessimistic.  Lots of TLC and foal was weaned - and next foal safely born and reared - although mare was still very poor.  We had her heart checked again - the murmur was gone - so hadn't been the cause of the weight loss.

I would GUESS the virus is the most likely cause - so wouldn't be panicking too much until horse has had time to get over the virus (which could be several months - rather than weeks.)


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## rhino (31 December 2010)

Hi, just noticed the reply - thanks JG 

Horse is still very much suffering with virus so fingers crossed when he gets better the murmur is not a problem.


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## Whoopit (24 May 2011)

I've just found out todday that my 3yr old has a Grade 3 heart murmur. I know nothing more than that though!

Vet wasn't overly concerned, I asked if I could still ride as normal and possibly do a little competition in the future and he said yeah, he didn't see why not, the only thing he'd recommend was if I ever had to have him sedated again to make sure the attending vet knows there's a murmur. Mine is an ex-racehorse so i'm sure if he was going to show any signs of it in a bad way he would have when he ran?  Vet did say that unless horse suddenly gets lathargic when riding or becomes unwell then I should exercise concern and consult the vet again.

It's made me wary of riding now though! I want to wrap him in bubblewrap!


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## TicTac (24 May 2011)

7 years ago we had a 6 year old horse vetted that ' failed ' on a grade 4 heart murmur, However we took a second opinion and bought him anyway ( see Imogenburrows reply) as it turns out it is a left sided diastolic murmur. We still have him and he is now 13 years old. We keep him ticking over with regular lunging and he can blow quite heavily when he excerts himself but his recovery time is good. I was told that his condition is not a ' drop down dead' problem and that signs that he is not coping any more will be that he gets tired quickly with no energy. He is out 24/7 for the summer now and due to lack of time only hacks at the moment but always has plenty of energy for what he does!!!


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## Whoopit (25 May 2011)

Ah, good. That's encouraging TicTac. He is fine when being ridden but I had noticed in the past he goes a litte sleepy once he's being untacked but he's absolutely fine after that. I've always put it down to just having exercised - I know the feeling of wanting to nod off after a little excursion!!

I had wanted to showjump him and possibly dabble in a little eventing (only low level) and had also wanted to go hunting next year, plus i'm going hacking at GG Centre in June (friends are jumping and I may pop one or two but by no means cross-country schooling) and now it's scared me a bit!!


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