18th valversary for my bovine valve

[Duffey]

Such great news Duffey. Here to many more!

Thanks!

 

[Duffey]

Congratulations Duffy! I am guessing that this is exactly what you hoped for.

Truthfully I hoped for 15 years and was quite prepared to have a second OHS. At the time, 2005, not much was said about TAVR but now it looks like I will go that route when the time comes.

 

[macdaddy]

You’re not mistaken. It’s both. TAVR is a special procedure that can only be done with a particular product that is designed to be installed that way. The valve has to be able to be collapsed to thread into place through a blood vessel, then expanded once there.

No mechanical valves can do this yet, and tissue valves that are sutured into place have a hard sewing ring that can’t be collapsed, so open heart is required for those as well.

That helps a lot; thank you for that clarification Superman.

 

[DanO]

Congrats. I got the bovine back in 2009. All good still. No issues as yet. I’m 70.

 

[ottagal]

I'm chiming in very late on this, but a big congrats on turning 18! Such wonderful news and may you continue to surpass your cardiologist's expectations. Fantastic.

 

[pellicle]

The 80 yr old guy who sits next to me in the clarinet section came to rehearsal and said he had his TAVR done the week before and has a new aortic valve.

evidence is accumulating that for his age group TAVR is shaping up as the best alternative.

 

[Duffey]

I'm chiming in very late on this, but a big congrats on turning 18! Such wonderful news and may you continue to surpass your cardiologist's expectations. Fantastic.

Thanks!

 

[carolinemc]

Thanks!

Congrats.

 

[Rob.D1970]

Congrats.

That is awesome news to here. I have to have my Aortic and Mitral valve replace. I have been leaning toward the tissue valves vs the mechanical valve. Any information and or suggestions you have on the procedure and recoory would be greatly appreciated.

 

[carolinemc]

That is awesome news to here. I have to have my Aortic and Mitral valve replace. I have been leaning toward the tissue valves vs the mechanical valve. Any information and or suggestions you have on the procedure and recoory would be greatly appreciated.

My aortic valve is a St. Jude's leaflet and have had it for 22 years, on warfarin and doing fine. I have yet to be looking at surgery for the mitral valve, they are just watching it closely. On bypass, it was the old crack of the chest and placed on the heart and lung machine. The time was less than it was when I was 8 years old, and it was called a repair with the scrapping of dome of the murmur. Over time, as I grew older, the murmur got worse again, thus the valve replacement. Recovery for the chest takes one years, restrictions are usually for three months for the sternum, one year for the muscles to heal from the trauma of being cut for the surgery. I usually tell those who have the chest crack to exercise by walking to start. You cannot pull on anything like stair railings and such for the first three months. Then you can get the exercises going to get the body build back up on the stamina. That is all I can relate to you. Good luck on your choices and bypass surgery has come a long way these days.

 

[Innovativebrain]

They said it wouldn’t last, but 18 years later my Edwards Magna Perimount is still working well. I was 52 when Dr. Kouchoukos replaced my stenotic aortic valve. There has been little to no change over the years. I hope everyone who undergoes replacement will have the same good fortune.

I too have a Perimount Magna Ease. About 5 years into it. @Duffy, your share was inspiration? a relief? hope-inducing? All of the above.

All: You might find some of the research about magnesium supplementation interesting. Some hope that it might decrease calcification.

Research (found to-date) around magnesium supplementation. Here's a meta-analysis published in AHAjournal, June 2017. Note the passive binding hypothesis... https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/atvbaha.117.309182

And another from BMJ in 2018. https://openheart.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000668

Neither conclusive, and I wish for an RCT, but funding for clinical trial in supplements can be hard to come by. Enough for me to go ahead and move on it until I find contraindications however, from my perspective. And I'm not a supplement nut, quite the opposite. I've experienced no side effects that are noticeable. N=1 ;-)

I'm taking 210mg of Magnesium Citrate BID
YOLO-YMMV-Carpe Diem ;-)