After 2 years

[Abfish79]

Is it in your experience that after 2 years if you EF is not normal it will never be normal? When I was diagnosed it was 15% and took a year to get to 35% and now it is 45%.

[Mindyt]

My EF took over 3 years to reach 50%. I think you can continue to recover for a long time. Don't give up! My EF hovered in the 40's for several years before reaching 50%!!

[JAMESFETT]

Recovery of systolic heart function for a PPCM patient, defined as LV EF > 50 % with or without heart failure meds, may require longer. Healing continues for at least 4 years post-diagnosis, and longer observation may confirm that a few take even longer than that. Important: stay on some dosage of ACE-I and/or B-B, and don't give up hope. In Haiti, we have shown that of those who recover 71.9 % have reached that measure by 24 months post-partum, meaning that 1/4 of patients who recover do so after the 24 month post-diagnosis stage. Series in the USA show that over 1/3 of PPCM patients who eventually recover have not yet done so at 12 months. Part of the reason that researchers have been wrong about the time to heal is that they have not followed patients for a long enough period of time in their study reports. It is a myth that recovery must occur in the 6 to 24 month window, or else it will not happen--that is just not the case. But this mis-information has been perpetuated since Demakis' reports in 1976. Longitudinal studies that continue longer show that there is indeed hope for later recovery.

[Abfish79]

Thank you for clearing that up. I was starting to think I would never get normal function

[cathygordley]

My EF upon diagnosis was 15% also. It's been about 1 1/2 years and my EF is now 44%.