Pericardial Knock & JVD: What Inspiration Does #shorts

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]You will hear a pericardial knock on your physical exam. Okay, what else would you have?

[00:00:06]You will have a JVD, very good. You will have a JVD. Okay.

[00:00:11]Now, what should happen to your JVD when you do inspiration?

[00:00:15]Remember the story. When you inspire, right? When you inspire, your diaphragm moves down, pulls on your visceral and parietal pleura. Normally, you have a negative pressure within your pleural space. It goes from like -5 to -8. So, you create a much bigger suction force in your lung, and that suction force going to open up the alveoli, suck air in. That's why >> [snorts] >> when you would breathe in, you suck air into your lungs. Everything's getting suctioned into your lung to keep it there like a vacuum.

[00:00:42]Right? Similarly, you will also suck in blood because it's a negative force. So, from the IVC, from the legs, you bring in blood. From the head and neck, you bring in blood into your right atrium, right? Into your right ventricle, and into the lungs and keep it there. Now, when you're looking at your jugular vein, your jugular vein drains into superior vena cava, which drains into your heart.

[00:01:06]So, when you do inspiration, your blood should leave your jugular veins, go into your right atrium, go into your right ventricle, and go into your lungs, and stay there. So, what should happen to JVD when you do an inspiration?

[00:01:18]Should come like deeper. It should decrease.