Exploring Heart Disease-How Hearts “Break”

updated May 25, 2026

If you have ever had a “broken heart” (and who hasn’t?), you know the sadness and grief cause not just emotional pain, but physical pain. And since that pain is often felt in our chest, it makes sense that we call it “heartbreak”.

The late Elvis Presley made the expression famous with his breakout hit Heartbreak Hotel. 

And a particularly gruesome battle during the Korean War occurred at a place named Heartbreak Ridge, dramatized in a movie  Heartbreak Ridge.

Exploring -the HEART

We often use the term HEART DISEASE when many diseases involve the heart.  HEART conditions affect people from birth to death.

Congenital Heart Disease

Heart problems that are present at birth are called congenital heart disease. Defectos cardíacos congénitos. Signs or symptoms may not be apparent for a few weeks or months.

• A congenital heart defect is a problem with the structure of the heart. It is present at birth.
• Congenital heart defects are the most common type of birth defect.
• The defects can involve the walls of the heart, the valves of the heart, and the arteries and veins near the heart.
• They can disrupt the normal flow of blood through the heart. The blood flow can slow down, go in the wrong direction or to the wrong place, or be blocked completely.

I remember how concerned I felt when my son called to tell me the doctor had found a heart murmur in my 3-week-old granddaughter- especially since they lived 2000 miles away. An  echocardiogram showed a VSD, a ventricular septal defect– a hole between the two larger chambers of her heart. We were all relieved when the pediatric cardiologist said it was small and unlikely to cause her problems or to need surgery, and his prediction has been correct.

Other congenital heart conditions

CARDIOPATÍAS CONGÉNITAS

Cardiomyopathy

In a previous post I told you about my late friend Chuck who had heart disease. Chuck had developed cardiomyopathy, disease of the heart muscle, which makes up the walls of the heart. Cardiomyopathy has many causes, including high blood pressure (if not controlled), ischemia (lack of blood flow), infections, toxins, including alcohol, and sometimes unknown causes.

Cardiomyopathy can often be managed with medications and lifestyle but sometimes, as in Chuck’s case, requires heart transplantation.

Chuck’s wife Sara wrote about his heart condition as well as other medical issues in her memoir Trumped By Sovereignty.

Myocarditis

Miocarditis

Myocarditis was a potential complication of COVID-19, both from the virus itself as well as the mRNA vaccines against it. But the risk was higher with infection than from the vaccine, the American Heart Association reported.

Myocarditis is much less common than other heart diseases but tends to occur more often in men, and in young to middle aged persons.

Myocarditis results from the inflammation created by a variety of causes.

• cancer drugs that inhibit the immune system
• autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus
• vaccines-mRNA for SARS-CoV2 and smallpox vaccine
• the most common cause-viruses including coronavirus, influenza, parvovirus B19, dengue

Like other forms of heart disease myocarditis can lead to heart failure and arrhythmias with a mortality rate of 1-7%. Most people have uncomplicated myocarditis and fully recover.

Ischemic Heart Disease

Enfermedad de las arterias coronarias

My late father developed diabetes mellitus which led to atherosclerosis of his coronary arteries, the arteries that carry oxygen to the heart itself. Atherosclerosis can affect any of the arteries and sclerosis means “hardening”, hence the term hardening of the arteries.

In his case this caused a heart attack, which in medical terms is a myocardial (heart muscle) infarction(death or damage).

From the damage to his heart muscle he developed congestive heart failure; his heart could not effectively pump blood  to his body.

I still remember the night I received a phone call soon after going to bed. It was an EMT from the local ambulance service telling me he was at my parents’ home. My mother called 911 after my father collapsed at home and died from sudden cardiac death.

Sudden cardiac death occurs when someone with heart disease dies suddenly and unexpectedly. But sometimes, unlike my father’s case, the victim and family didn’t know a heart condition existed. This is often the case when someone dies from a sudden and persistent irregularity of the heart rhythm, called an arrhythmia.

Presión arterial elevada (Hipertensión)

Hypertension

Both my husband and I have hypertension, the medical term for high blood pressure. This is probably the most common cardiovascular disease . Although not a heart condition, it can cause disease in the heart and other vital organs, as shown in this diagram .

Exploring the HEART of Health

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