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One can have a heart problem without knowing it. In some cases, the first sign is not chest pain, breathlessness or fatigue, but an unusual sound that a doctor picks up while listening to your heart. These sounds can occur when blood flow through the heart is disrupted and may sometimes point to a problem with the heart valves or its structure, even before symptoms appear.
What can heart sounds reveal?
Every time your heart beats, it makes a sound. Blood rushes through chambers, valves open and close, and all of this creates the familiar rhythm a doctor picks up with a stethoscope during a routine check-up. Most of the time, that rhythm sounds exactly as it should. But sometimes it does not. When a doctor hears something, extra unusual sound layered over the normal beat, that is what is known as a heart murmur. It usually means blood is moving through the heart in a slightly turbulent way, rather than flowing smoothly. Not all murmurs are cause for concern. Plenty are completely harmless and never lead to anything. But others can be linked to things like:
- A narrowed or leaky heart valve
- Structural issues within the heart itself
- Irregular blood flow patterns
- Congenital heart conditions present from birth
- A murmur is not a diagnosis; it is a signal. It tells a doctor, to look a little closer.
Why symptoms may come later
If a valve is not working quite right, or blood flow is slightly off, the heart can often quietly adjust and keep pace for years, sometimes decades, without you noticing a thing. Eventually, though, that extra effort can catch up with it. That is usually when people start noticing they are more tired than usual, get winded doing things that never used to bother them, feel dizzy, notice their heart fluttering, or see some swelling in their ankles or legs. By the time symptoms show up, the underlying issue may have been there for quite a while.
When should you get checked?
If a doctor picks up on a new or unusual heart sound, especially if it comes alongside symptoms, or there is a personal or family history of heart disease, it is worth getting it checked out properly.
- Depending on what they find, next steps might include:
- An echocardiogram - basically an ultrasound of the heart
- An ECG - to check the heart is electrical activity
- Possibly other cardiac tests, if the doctor feels they are needed
You do not have to feel unwell for something to be going on with your heart. An unusual sound picked up during an otherwise routine check-up can sometimes be the very first clue that something is worth looking into further. That is exactly why routine physical exams still matter, even now, with all the advanced imaging tools available to doctors. A trained ear, paired with the right follow-up tests, can go a long way toward catching problems early and stepping in while there's still time to make a real difference.
(By Dr. Sanjay S. Bhat, Lead Senior Consultant - Interventional Cardiology Department of Cardiology, Ramaiah Memorial Hospital, Bengaluru)
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