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What Causes Short Of Breath And Numbness After An Accident?

Posted on Tue, 17 Mar 2015

Question: I WAS in a car accident and was HIT IN THE REAR END WHILE STOPPED AT A LIGHT. TWO DAYS LATER I BEGAN HAVING EPISODES WHERE I WOULD BECOME SHORT OF BREATH, NUMBNESS IN THE ARMS AND LEGS, AND CAN NOT WALK LONG DISTANCES (less than 100 steps) WITHOUT THESE SYMPTOMS GETTING WORSE AND I BLACK OUT. I have been hospitalized 1 time due to syncopy/dyspnea I was told a few yrs ago that I had a heart murmur. Now I have been diagnosed with severe mitral valve regurgitation and am having open heart surgery in a week to either repair or replace the mitral valve. My question is could the impact of the car accident have anything to do with the heart valve diagnosis? I did not have any symptoms until after the accident

Answered by Dr. Vivek Chail (17 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Rare possibility or severe mitral regurgitation and trauma might exist

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXX,
Thanks for writing in to us.

I have read through your query in detail.
A blunt trauma to the chest has to be carefully analyzed for complications arising from it.

I have done a through medical review based on your details and have come across an article which looks interesting and might throw some light on your situation.

It speaks of a traumatic mitral valve injury after blunt chest trauma. The authors admitted a patient with severe traumatic mitral regurgitation who was successfully treated with surgery. They also reviewed old records of such cases in medical literature. Among the 82 cases reported that have been treated with surgery, 57% required a valve replacement.

Please find the article details using the link below

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000

It is important to keep in mind that you previously had a heart murmur. The impact of the car accident is not known. Therefore such a causative relationship of severe mitral regurgitation and injury has to be handled with an element of doubt.

Which you a quick recovery.

Hope this answers your question. Please feel free to correct any oversight in my interpretation of your problems and discuss them in detail as per your requirements.

Hope your query is answered.
Do write back if you have any doubts.

Regards,
Dr.Vivek

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Vivek Chail (29 minutes later)

I can not understand why I had no symptoms before my accident. I saw my Dr. 1 week prior to the accident and he said everything was good. From September 15th, 2014 until December 29th, 2014 there were many of these episodes. I was sent home from work many times and when I was sent home I went to see my Dr. and was told it was anxiety. I also saw a neurologist who said I may had a concussion or possibly a seizure. For the most part I saw PAs on the return visits. I went to the ER several times and on my last ER visit (Dec 29th) I was told that I had CHF. On December 31 when I saw my physician he heard the bad valve right on the spot and I was seen by a cardiologist that same day. He sent me for an echo and stress test followed by a TEE several days later. on January the 17th when I passed out and turned blue my BP was 60/40. The impact from the accident was very hard, I was stopped, my foot on the break when I was rear ended by an Expidition, I drive a Toyota Camry. I had seat belt burns I assume because when I was hit I went forward towards the windshield and something snapped either in by neck, chest or back. I am also currently seeing a chiropractor for headaches, back and neck paid

Answered by Dr. Vivek Chail (14 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Please find details below

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXX,
Thanks for writing back with an update.

It will help to study in detail the last echocardiography report done before the accident and the one in the days following.

An accident can cause injury in many ways and chest trauma can still happen even with seat belts on, unless you had an airbag which might have reduced the impact of injury.

What I mean to say that even if you had a minor degree of heart failure before the accident, it can always transform in to a severe mitral regurgitation and cause CHF. Something that could have occurred many years later has happened right after the accident. However, in the absence of medical records, further discussion might be limited as you always had an early stage of heart disease.

Hope your query is answered.
Do write back if you have any doubts.

Regards,
Dr.Vivek

Note: For further queries related to coronary artery disease and prevention, click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar