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Back Pain And Mitral Valve Prolapse: What Should Patients Know?

Written By: Adam Pick, Patient Advocate, Author & Website Founder
Page Last Updated: July 15, 2025

There are a number of symptoms for mitral valve prolapse as I have written about in a prior blog. However, I just received a patient email asking, "Can you have back pain with mitral valve prolapse?"

This is a pretty interesting question. I'll tell you why.

First, for three years before my heart valve surgery I had chronic, lower back pain. I saw chiropractors. I saw massage therapists. I had prolotherapy done. I had cranial sacral therapy. I even went to a Chinese healer.

Guess what? Nothing helped!

The other reason this is interesting because after my heart surgery recovery, I noticed that my lower back pain was no longer present. It's been awhile now since my aortic and pulmonary valve replacements (about 20 months), but my lower back pain is gone.

Interesting, right?

Maybe back pain is a symptom of heart valve disorders including aortic stenosis and mitral valve regurgitation? So you know, I just did some research on this topic in Google and medical journals. I visited the websites of Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic to see if there was some research about back pain and heart valve disease. Unfortunately, I did not find any literature on this topic.

Anyways, that's about all I know about back pain as a symptom of mitral valve prolapse.

Written by Adam Pick - Patient & Website Founder

Adam Pick is a heart valve patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. In 2006, Adam founded HeartValveSurgery.com to educate and empower patients. This award-winning website has helped over 10 million people fight heart valve disease. Adam has been featured by the American Heart Association and Medical News Today.

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