American Airguns Blog
The Random Ramblings Of An Airgun Addict

I was diagnosed about 4 years ago with a Mitral Valve Prolapse. The Mitral Valve is located between the upper left chamber and lower left chamber of the heart. It is made of two flaps of tissue that normally open and close in a rhythmic way to allow blood to flow in one direction--from the atrium (upper chamber) to the ventricle (lower chamber). The left ventricle is responsible for much of the heart's pumping and propels oxygen-rich blood into the arteries. The arteries then carry the blood throughout the body. When the mitral valve doesn't open and close properly, the flaps may "billow" backward slightly into the upper chamber during the heart's contraction. This is called mitral valve prolapse (MVP). As a result of MVP, a clicking sound can often be heard by the doctor listening to the heart sounds with a stethoscope. MVP tends to run in families, so those with blood relatives with MVP have a greater chance of also having the condition. MVP itself isn't life threatening and doesn't get worse over time so there aren't any real health threats associated with it, unless a heart murmur develops. Thankfully, I don't have a murmur.

The real problem with MVP is an associated syndrome that has a wide variety of affects on the body. The syndrome is called Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome or Dysautonomia (pronounced dis-auto-no-me-a). Some people with MVP don’t show any symptoms of the MVPS/D, unfortunately I am not one of them. When I was first diagnosed with MVP, I wasn’t told about the associated syndrome and just recently learned of it. This is very common since many doctors don’t know about the syndrome or don’t believe it really is associated with MVP.

Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome or Dysautonomia or MVPS/D affects the autonomic nervous system which controls a lot of the common bodily functions. MVPS/D can cause sleeplessness, fatigue, irritability, depression, anxiety, back pain, tension headaches, irregular heartbeats, racing heartbeat, extra heartbeats, and numbness in feet and hands. Over the past years I have exhibited many of these problems, particularly the sleeplessness and fatigue.

One interesting fact is that people with MVPS/D typically have about 80-85% of the normal blood volume as other people and are subject to dehydration and the ill affects of that. Also, the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is much more sensitive and tends to over react to caffeine and refined sugar. In my own life I noticed that when I would drink a cup of coffee I would feel good for about a half hour and then I would feel like I needed to lie down and sleep. Also, if I ate or drank anything with a lot of sugar (like ice cream) I would get a terrible headache. The ANS also likes a consistent routine, skipping meals can cause weird reactions.

I bought a couple of books on the MVPS/D subject and went last Friday to the Mitral Valve Prolapse Center of Alabama clinic in Birmingham Alabama. I found out most of this information after the Nationals last week, which is really too bad since looking back at that match, I did a lot of things wrong that adversely affected my performance. I also look back to several other big matches and can see how my efforts in setting up the match or preparations before the match were actually detrimental to my ability to shoot well (you just knew that all this would come around to shooting sometime!). At the 2002 and 2004 Nationals I helped setup the courses and did other prep work without proper hydration and limited food intake which ended up causing fatigue and weak muscular control for the next couple of days. Over the last couple of years I also started drinking sweet tea (a real staple in the south) and Frappuccinos which really had a drastic affect on my ability to hold still and shoot well.

The only real cure for this problem is regular aerobic exercise, eating right, drinking lots of water, taking supplements, and elimination of caffeine and refined sugar from the diet. I am implementing these things in my life but it will be something I have to better manage as I compete in the future so that it won’t have such an adverse affect on my shooting. However, it does give me an excellent excuse for future field target matches!

To learn more about MVP and MVPS/D, visit the Mitral Valve Prolapse Center of Alabama website at http://www.mvprolapse.com/.