Enalapril is an ace-inhibitor and as Al says, it lowers the blood pressure - makes the heart not have to work quite so hard. In Chloe's case, as she has always had a tiny leak at one corner of her replacement valve, its a precautionary measure to ensure her ventricle doesnt enlarge as she grows and the leak continues. Not all children are put on it after valve replacement at all! Chloe's heart was incredibly enlarged at surgery time though, as her regurg had got severe - she was very lucky to escape transplant! And although, thankgod! her heart size reduced back down, 2 years after surgery, the left ventricle was the upper end of normal still, so they put her back on the enalapril and its worked really well - shes back within normal range again.
She used to be on captoptil, before the replacement, to try and help her heart out while the regurgitation was so bad, but that gave her a cough, so after surgery when they decided to put her back on an ace-inhibitor, they went for enalapril, as firstly, it causes less of the cough side-effect and secondly, its only given once a day rather than three times like captopril.
You may well find Curtis' cardi will put him on an ace-inhibitor if/when his regurg increases and in most cases they work very effectively and can delay surgery for a while longer. They are nothing to worry about but you do have to have an overnight stay or day stay in hospital when the drug is started or increased as one of its side effects is a sudden drop in blood pressure, so they like to monitor the children for a few hours (take BP every half an hour) just to make sure.
Hope that answers any queries about that - without boring you silly!
Love Emma
xxx
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