Hello all,
First - thanks to all for sharing your stories and info on this forum.
It's been a great resource for me over the past few months as I prepared for surgery.
I'm 33 and am 8 weeks out from having a valve repair performed on a severely regurgitating aortic valve.
I had this done at WVU Heart and Vascular Institute in Morgantown, WV. They have just heavily invested in recruiting some excellent surgeons and it was close for me.
The procedure is also known as the Ozaki procedure, and more specifically, a trileaflet repair from unicuspid origin with autologous pericardial reconstruction into trileaflet anatomy and leaflet patch augmentation.
I've known about my valve for ~5 years and based on the most recent echo we decided it was time as the left ventricle was showing signs of stress and regurgitation was getting worse.
We caught the valve issue when my Dr. heard a murmur during a physical.
The surgeon was surprised that the valve was unicuspid. It looked bicuspid in the echo but the real thing looked like a floppy horse shoe
The plan was repair or replace with mechanical. If it looked like the repair was feasible and would likely be durable, then that was the preferred option.
Durability was and is a concern as this procedure doesn't have 20+ years of data that I'm aware of.
Based on conversations with the surgeon it felt like this fell in the sweet spot for risk/reward between all the options.
2 weeks post-surgery I was readmitted to drain a pericardial effusion and pleural effusion.
That was a decent setback as I was recovering pretty quickly up until i could no longer walk across the room without needing to catch my breath.
A few other notes for folks going into surgery in case it might help:
I got pretty bad nausea from Amiodarone.
Post-surgery was tough but it should get better every day - and if it doesn't let someone know quickly.
I moped around for too long with pericardial effusion before I called to complain - by that point I had 1.5 liters of fluid around my heart.
I had to avoid laughing too hard for the first week or so as it was very painful.
Breathing was tough - use the spirometer!
I'm very happy with the result so far.
My last echo showed improved left ventricle function and trace regurgitation with no increase since surgery.
First - thanks to all for sharing your stories and info on this forum.
It's been a great resource for me over the past few months as I prepared for surgery.
I'm 33 and am 8 weeks out from having a valve repair performed on a severely regurgitating aortic valve.
I had this done at WVU Heart and Vascular Institute in Morgantown, WV. They have just heavily invested in recruiting some excellent surgeons and it was close for me.
The procedure is also known as the Ozaki procedure, and more specifically, a trileaflet repair from unicuspid origin with autologous pericardial reconstruction into trileaflet anatomy and leaflet patch augmentation.
I've known about my valve for ~5 years and based on the most recent echo we decided it was time as the left ventricle was showing signs of stress and regurgitation was getting worse.
We caught the valve issue when my Dr. heard a murmur during a physical.
The surgeon was surprised that the valve was unicuspid. It looked bicuspid in the echo but the real thing looked like a floppy horse shoe
The plan was repair or replace with mechanical. If it looked like the repair was feasible and would likely be durable, then that was the preferred option.
Durability was and is a concern as this procedure doesn't have 20+ years of data that I'm aware of.
Based on conversations with the surgeon it felt like this fell in the sweet spot for risk/reward between all the options.
2 weeks post-surgery I was readmitted to drain a pericardial effusion and pleural effusion.
That was a decent setback as I was recovering pretty quickly up until i could no longer walk across the room without needing to catch my breath.
A few other notes for folks going into surgery in case it might help:
I got pretty bad nausea from Amiodarone.
Post-surgery was tough but it should get better every day - and if it doesn't let someone know quickly.
I moped around for too long with pericardial effusion before I called to complain - by that point I had 1.5 liters of fluid around my heart.
I had to avoid laughing too hard for the first week or so as it was very painful.
Breathing was tough - use the spirometer!
I'm very happy with the result so far.
My last echo showed improved left ventricle function and trace regurgitation with no increase since surgery.
