The inside of your heart contains four valves and four chambers that are lined by a thin membrane called the endocardium. Endocarditis is an inflammation and/or infection of this inner layer of your heart. It usually involves your heart valves (native or prosthetic valves), also.

Infective endocarditis, which is sometimes called bacterial endocarditis strikes somewhere between 10,000 –20,000 people in the United States each year. Although endocarditis is not a common disease, it is important because even with antimicrobial therapy it can lead to the need for open heart surgery, stroke or even death.

Endocarditis is known by some other names besides the two just mentioned. It is also called rheumatic endocarditis, acute endocarditis, valvular endocarditis and mural endocarditis.

There are also several types of endocarditis. These range all the way from acute forms that appear suddenly to subacute forms that develop gradually over a period of time.

The effects that you may experience with endocarditis vary according to the cause of the infection and the type of the disease. Some of the ways that you may be affected by endocarditis are:

• Weight loss
• Night sweats
• Fever
• Chills
• Chest or back pain
• Joint or arthritis pain
• A persistent cough
• Shortness of breath
• Tiny, purplish-red pinpoint spots of bleeding under your skin (petechiae)
• Headaches
• Painless, bumpy nodules on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.
• Dark red lines of bleeding under your nails (splinter hemorrhages)
• Tender spots under the skin on the pads of your fingers (Oster’s nodes).

There are other clinical effects caused by endocarditis that will have to be confirmed by your doctor. Some of these are:

• An enlarged spleen
• Stroke
• A change in the quality of an existing heart murmur or a new heart murmur
• Embolisms caused by clumps of blood cells and infectious fungi or bacteria.

Endocarditis and problems along with or resulting from it may be causing you or a loved one’s disability. This disease may be why you or your loved one cannot work and needs financial assistance.

Who can you turn to for the financial help that you need? Where will this assistance come from?

Have you or your loved one applied for financial help from the Social Security Administration by applying for Social Security disability benefits or disability benefits because of the disability caused by endocarditis and problems resulting from or along with this disease? Were you or your loved one denied?

If you or your loved one is planning on appealing the denial by the Social Security Administration, here is something that you need to remember. People who are represented and assisted by a skilled disability attorney like the one you will find at socialsecurityhome.com are approved more often than those people who do not have a lawyer.

Do not wait. Do not put this off. Contact the trustworthy disability attorney at socialsecurityhome.com, today.