What're the signs and symptoms of infective endocarditis?
Bacterial endocarditis can produce many different symptoms, including fever, weakness, breathlessness and rashes. These may be present for weeks before the cause becomes clear. Endocarditis is usually diagnosed when bacteria is found in the blood. The signs and symptoms of infective endocarditis depend on the causative organism. Symptoms may include fever, fatigue, weight loss, new rashes (either painful or painless), headaches, backaches, joint pains, and
confusion. While these seem like nonspecific symptoms, your doctor will consider them in the context of your own personal risk factors as well as the results of a physical exam and laboratory findings.
A new heart murmur as well as new skin, fingernail, and retinal lesions are typical physical findings in endocarditis. Doctors make the diagnosis by finding microbial organisms in the blood and by performing an echocardiogram that shows evidence of endocarditis in the heart. In many cases the infection develops quite slowly. This is sometimes called 'sub-acute bacterial endocarditis' or 'SBE'. Symptoms can develop gradually, over weeks or months, and can be vague at first. You tend to feel generally unwell and may have general aches and pains, tiredness, and be off your food. A fever (a high temperature) develops at some stage in most cases. As these first symptoms can be caused by a lot of other conditions, the cause of the symptoms may not be diagnosed for some time.
Heart murmurs tend to develop and can be heard by a doctor using a stethoscope. Murmurs are caused by abnormal flow of blood through faulty or damaged valves. If you already have a heart murmur from an existing valve problem, the murmur may change or become more. In some cases the symptoms develop quite quickly and you can become quite unwell over a few days. The speed at which the illness develops partly depends on which bacteria are causing the infection. Some bacteria are more 'virulent' than others. |
