Choices
Choices
I deliberated on the choice a lot.
My surgeon has a series of about 85 stentless porcine patients and wanted to go that route. He uses the Medtronic Freestyle valve.
I read a number of abstracts from medical journals that compared the existing results of this Medtronic to the St. Jude's and others, as well as comparison to various homografts. There isn't any long term data that I could find, but there's a lot of 10 year stats, etc. that make this look promising as an alternative.
Since I have a homograft right now that is failing early, they didn't want to go that route.
I live a pretty active lifestyle (well, I did up to 8 months ago or so) and travel to a lot places that don't have very sophisticated healthcare, so I was concerned about blood thinners. Aside from beer, my favorite liquid after water, I do not like the idea of taking any drugs unless absolutely necessary. The whole bleeding and keeping track of INR or whatever it's called also felt like a freedom being removed.
The downside for me about going with another bio-prothesis is that I know it's probably peter out in 10-15 years (despite what the doctors say). That means a 3rd surgery before I'm 50, which carries more risk, but it's one I'm willing to take because I hope technology will provide a lifelong drug free alternative by then.
They warned me that if things don't look proper once their inside, they may still put a mechanical in me.
I've come to the conclusion that in my case, there are no significant concerns in either procedure. I would be happy with eitehr one because with the mechanical, I would probably postpone another surgery possibly forever. With the bio, I don't have to take the drugs.
I know you didn't ask for a giant book of information about my decision, but you were polite enough to ask and right now, because my date is so close, it makes me feel better to talk about it.
Thanks for the ear!
Kev
