Hello. Thank you for your question and welcome to HCM. I understand your concern.
Every organ system can fail when the cardiac insufficiency is present, i.e. her heart pumps only 20% of its content in a single
systole, while 55-70% is normal. Which means this heart works only 20% to satisfy every system organs, needs for
oxygen and nutrient. Kidneys fail because they are a subject or sacrifice, in order that other vital organs keep going.
However, we would only speculate if I gave you an exact or approximate time or longlivety or such patients. The thing that is known is that there is no regression, only slow or fast progression of the disease, depending on the medical, pharmacological and diet measures. Therefore, she should not eat salt at all, because it retains water, and it is estimated that 1 g of salt retains 10 g of water. She should not perform physical activity, other then everyday life duties and activities. If there is
shortness of breath and swelling even doing those activities, then she should be bedridden and/or in oxygen. Besides medication taken for the
ischemic heart disease, there should also be
furosemide, spironolacton and inotropic agents, ıf necessary.
Furthermore, this
enlarged heart, has its muscle cells stretched and separated from each other and there is deposition of non-functional, fibrotic tissue, whereas in a normal heart muscle cells are in close neighbourhood and connected through channels with each other, with no fibrotic tissue between them. Therefore, this enlarged heart is a subject for malignant, serious, potentially life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. A further discussion should be carried out with her cardiologist to assess the possibility of implanting an implantable cardioverter-defibrilator (ICD) to prevent death from these arrhythmias.
I hope I was thorough with my answer. Take care.
Kind regards,
Dr. Meriton