A squeaking heart

You know I think that our bodies do all sorts of squeaking and squakking and jerking that we don't know about. I wonder if you heard a murmur that was transient, maybe just the position you ended up in when you slept. I bet you'll never hear it again.

Lots of times I've heard some bizarre things through my stethoscope and later figured out it was a button or an earring or something stupid.

As a student nurse you will get every disease they talk about for as long as you are working on that part of the body. My advice...wait until you have been talking about neurology before you go to the doc about cardiovascular problems or you will be there so often that you will get frequent flyer miles. Or ask some smart medical resident, they love to show off their knowledge of bizarre problems.

mario ,had you cleaned yours ears or blown your .sometimes when descending in a plane you get ear pain and your ears can queak maybe your sinuses and eustation

tubes were blocked giving the same noise as I had experienced in the plane.

Or else did you get a service manual wth the heart when is its service due ? have you changed the oil? or it one of the new self lubricating models?

Perhaps it was the leather pants that you appear to be sporting in your most recent avatar. Maybe you had them pulled up a little too high that day.

Mario,

I am not nearly as witty as Mary and MHN! But squeaking of the heart with each beat may indicate a pericardial rub, which occurs when the tow outermost linings of the heart become inflammed and "rub" against each other. Normally there is a small amount of fluid between these layers that keeps them from rubbing against each other, but in some cases, as in pericarditis, or sometimes in chronic renal failure and BUN gets high, you can hear a rub.

I doubt very much that you have pericarditis or chronic renal failure, and I would be at a loss to explain why you would have a pericarial rub. So, maybe canoe's explanation is the best, maybe it was in your ears, and taking the deep breaths also cleared your eustacian tubes. ????

Check this out http://www.wilkes.med.ucla.edu/Rubintro.htm does it sound like two peices of leather rubbing against each other? You will enjoy surfing around this site if I know you.

Originally posted by Mary Dover

Perhaps it was the leather pants that you appear to be sporting in your most recent avatar. Maybe you had them pulled up a little too high that day.

:chuckle :roll :chuckle :roll :chuckle :roll :chuckle

In all seriousness Mario, where were you listening again? Is it possible that what you were hearing were distant lung sounds? I know I was once listening to lung sounds, and thought the baby was very coorifice. Another opinion was that it was just the beautiful gunk of labor in the throat, the sounds are transferred easily because they aren't very far apart after all.

Perhaps it was just some transferred sound of a body part that has been resting all night. I hear lots of squeaks and creeks when I get out of bed in the morning. I'm sure you'll live a long healthy life...

... in leather

Heather

Canoehead - I always sleep on my back, and don't toss hardy at all.

MHN - the is no hyaluronic acid with my heart that I am aware of. I didn't learn about any "heart lubricant" in A&P

Hoolahan - thank you for the serious answer, because you have made me imagine and picture what is happening beneath my left nipple (and ribs).

That sound was there again this morning! Like an "itty-biddy" hiccup sound. And it did not start right away. This morning, I had my stethoscope on my night stand, and I had it in my ears perhaps 5 seconds after i woke up, and I couldn't hear the squeaking heart. It came on a minute after I woke up, and, again, it went away after I took deep breaths and stretched (yawned). So I observe that the squeak starts after I awake, and is not present during sleep, because the squeaks started moments after i awoke, but was not there immediately when i awoke.

What a strange sound! And an inspiration to imagine my heart when "it's asleep." so much to think about :-)

And Ms. Dover - my pants are comfortable, s'why I wear them (on occasion), because they are comfortable, not high up. You think I am too high for my britches? :-)

And Heather - you have risque eyes and mouth - wow :-)

margaret!!!!! pericardial rub........that was my first thought also!!!

mario the bad news is you are going to die........sometime? in 5 yrs, 10 yrs, 20 yrs, 50 yrs? who knows........like they say only two things in life are inevitable... taxes they get you coming, going, and after your gone.....and death. :chuckle

me :)

hey mario, where exactly are you putting the stethoscope to listen? you mentioned axillary, do you mean apical? bowel sounds always sound kinda squeeky to me......and sometimes have little hiccup-y sounds too

:kiss

Originally posted by mario_ragucci

That sound was there again this morning! Like an "itty-biddy" hiccup sound. And it did not start right away. This morning, I had my stethoscope on my night stand, and I had it in my ears perhaps 5 seconds after i woke up, and I couldn't hear the squeaking heart. It came on a minute after I woke up, and, again, it went away after I took deep breaths and stretched (yawned). So I observe that the squeak starts after I awake, and is not present during sleep, because the squeaks started moments after i awoke, but was not there immediately when i awoke.

What a strange sound! And an inspiration to imagine my heart when "it's asleep." so much to think about :-)

Mario --

A couple of possibilities:

1. Transient heart murmer. Sometimes people get what are called "high output" murmurs. That is, when the heart starts pumping more blood than it is used to, the increase in volume creates a slight regurgitation through the valves causing the sound. (Pregancy frequently causes this with the extra circulating volume -- are you pregnant??) After waking, your heart is still in a relatively low cardiac output state which increases as you start moving around. Once the heart "awakens" to the new day, it normalizes with the increased cardiac output and the murmur disappears.

2. Transient gallop. Along the lines of the transient murmur, it is possible to have a transient extra heart sound (s3 or s4). Again, once the heart readjusts to the higher cardiac output state, it can disappear.

3. Pericardial rub. Probably not, unless you have had a recent infection, renal failure, or lung cancer. (Stop smoking, Mario!)

4. The stethescope. Occasionally, a cold stethescope diaphragm squeaks. (Sleep with it under your pillow.)

5. Since the squeaking clears when you yawn, it might be a little wheezing in your lungs that you hear when you breathe. The yawning wakes up your lungs and clears the squeaking.

All in all, I think the chances are good that you're not going to die. Today, anyway.

Thanks Matt - I'm going to keep your responce because it explains so much. Did you look up this information you passed on to me, or is it from your experience? It sounds like the kinds of answers I'd, one day, like to belt out to someone who asks me a similiar question. I'll print your responce, and then try to draw a picture of a sleeping heart, with he information you have so wonderfully given. Really, how did you know these answers so well?

You must have taken your apical pulse in the morning too :-). I can't believe I said axillary pulse. it's apical I am taking about. I ahve so much info swimming in my hippocampus right now, mostly algebra. I'll put itto rest next week.

Thank you again!

And here I am picturing you with a stethoscope in your armpit. Thinking the hairs would sound like crackles. Lay scope lightly on chest and hold with one finger as far away from listening surface as you can. Especially as you age. Creaking finger joints are transmitted through bell of scope.

Mario, another cause of a squeaking sound in your chest may be that your chest hair is the cause of the squeak-- when you are first listening, you may be not getting the best seal of the diaphragm against the chest wall and with the slight movement of the chest a couple of chest hairs may be rubbing the diaphragm in time with your heartbeat. Try listening with the bell of the stethescope and see if the squeak is still there. If it is, the sound MAY be cardiac in nature; if it isn't, the sound may be too high pitched or it may be an extraneous sound. And what kind of stethescope do you have: does it have one rubber tube (like the Littman styles) or 2 tubes(a sprague-rappaport style)? If you have the Sprague-Rappaport style, sometimes the tubes can be rubbing together and cause a squeaking sound in time with the heartbeat.

As a night nurse in CV-ICU or other types of critical care for 29 years, I have rarely if ever heard of a transient pericardial friction rub in an asymptomatic or non-surgical (heart surgery, that is) patient. If your heart would squeak with first waking, I think that I would have heard this somewhere along the way since I often try listen to patients' hearts without waking them all the way up. And remember, the heart ALWAYS pumps oxygenated blood to all parts of the body; you don't have to be awake for that to happen (or we would all die as soon as we fell asleep for the first time).