Heart Murmur & Dental Treatment

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. Larry Klein. I'm a Dentist here in St. Petersburg, Florida and we get a lot of questions about being pre-medicated for Heart Hurmurs and dental treatment. Great, great question and one that's a little controversial but now being solved. The reason people are pre-medicated for Heart Murmur; Murmur itself is where the valves of the heart don't necessarily close at proper time and sequence and so sometimes a bacteremia can actually sit up in the, from the mouth and go actually in lodge on the heart causing an infection called the Bacterial Endocarditis; which can go anywhere from being sick to killing a person. There's a lot of concern in years past about dental procedures that actually cause this infection and in the past people didn't pre-medicate it with antibiotics before any sort of treatment. As of April 2007, The American Heart Association has said that a lot of these pre-medications do not have to be done before, prior to dental treatment. Some of the indications that are not being needed to be pre-medicated now would be things for Mitrovalve Prolapse; Murmur itself, where the functional or organic genitals defects in the heart; those are now not needed to be pre-medicated. There are still several that are pre-medicated and that would be anyone with the previous history of Endocarditis; people that have had a serious congenital heart defect and also people that have had a valve replacement. So if you have any other questions concerning pre-medication for a Murmur and what the American Heart Association recommends, please get in touch with me, Dr. Larry Klein here in St. Petersburg, Florida."