One day Dan begins having chest pains that become increasingly frequent and aggressive. An ultrasound reveals he has a heart murmur. Dan discusses his symptoms, his diagnosis and what actions he will take to prevent potential heart damage.

I first started to realize that something was going on about two years ago.



Hi. My name's Dan and I'm from Edison, New Jersey. I began to have chest pains, mostly when I was exercising, but also at random points during the day. It started to get really bad about a year ago. I started to have the symptoms, almost on a daily basis. Basically, almost anytime I was breathing I could end up all the sudden starting to have a chest pains, or even have like a heart palpitation that would more or less bring me to my knees.



After this started to get more and more regular, I decided I'd see a doctor about it. And after the doctor listened to my heart, and I had an ultrasound of my heart, it was determined that I did, in fact, have a heart murmur.



There's certain valves in my heart that were letting excess amounts of blood into the heart in between heart beats. So it would feel as if a beat was skipping, and then all the sudden the next beat because there was extra blood in there, it was really pushing my heart and it was pumping out so much that it almost felt like the wind was being knocked out of me.



After - after seeing a doctor and learning about this, I decided to make an effort to live a healthier lifestyle and, you know, I still have a heart murmur. It's something that I don't believe will ever go away. And - but I mean, you know, I'm living with it, and I'm fine.