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Happy Holidays!

I have a few years left on a 20 year term insurance policy. I never even considered notifying them of my BAV and aortic aneurysm. If you apply for new insurance you have to honestly answer their questions, but I am not aware of any obligation to update them on whatever medical issues come up...

I had my aortic valve spared during a surgery to address the aneurysms in my aortic root and ascending aorta. The valve was well functioning so it wasn't repaired but the situation is similar. I was given a 50% chance of it ultimately failing and since it started leaking after the surgery...

FredW and others are spot on with their numbers. Most people feel much better after recovering from aortic valve surgery and generally have no restrictions. If you are concerned about blood thinners you can read that section of this forum and get good advice from people that have lived with it...

Glad it went well. Welcome to the forum and the Zipper Club.

Hi, Welcome to the group. I didn't have my BAV valve repaired so much as spared when I had surgery for an aortic aneurysm of the root and ascending aorta. Some similarities. Although there is a chance of needing another surgery it is much less than that with a tissue valve (roughly 100%), but...

Fluid and Afib are not uncommon after surgery. I was on a diuretic for fluid a little more than a month after surgery though I didn't have enough fluid to warrant having it drained. I also had a couple incidents of Afib. The risk of both issues decrease with time.

Sorry to hear that your Dr. was such a jerk. Facing heart surgery is difficult enough. Now that you are looking for another Dr/Hospital, I suggest you make use of US News info on Hospitals, as well as http://www.hospitalsafetygrade.org/. For Dr's (and Hospitals) you can also check...

Between NYC and Boston you have 4 of the top 10 hospitals for heart surgery: http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings/cardiology-and-heart-surgery. I've always taken the position that for such an important surgery it is probably worth going to a top regional hospital. If not, then I...

$5000 out of pocket sounds like a good deal. I paid more than that for in network surgery. The thing about out of network that you have to watch out for is if you could also be responsible for the difference between Cleveland Clinic rates vs. your insurance companies rate guidelines. They...

I recently received a letter as well.

The HeartValveSurgery.com blog had an interview on this recently: http://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/heart-surgery-blog/2016/11/08/heater-cooler-machines-infection-cdc/ I read the transcript and receive the letter the next day that the machine was used in my surgery in 2013. There is low risk...

US News has rankings on Hospitals here: http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings/cardiology-and-heart-surgery They also have a useful search option but it appears to be broken at the moment (only returning results < 25 miles). and there is another website with Hospital safety rankings...

It's not uncommon to have some afib following heart surgery, but often that clears up after a couple months - mine did. Have you had continuing episodes of afib or are you on warfarin for another reason? Just asking because if the afib stopped then I would think the warfarin could stop as well.

It's just a different set of criteria. Not all aneurysms progress to the point that they are a significant risk. I believe there is a more aggressive criteria used to evaluate whether to fix an aneurysm when also fixing a valve, vs. when dealing with just an aneurysm. I don't know offhand...

For me the anticipation was one of the worst parts. Soon you will be on the other side, again, and can focus on recovery and letting your kids dote on you for a little while. Best wishes.

Glad to hear it! Thanks for sharing.

Hi, The way I looked at it, once you get close to the surgical criteria, surgery and the (small) associated risks are inevitable. I've read that beyond 4.7cm aneurysms tend to keep growing. The longer you wait the larger the (small) risk of an incident prior to surgery, so waiting increases...

Glad to hear that you are ok. As was discussed in another thread recently it is important to be involved and advocate for yourself. If the Dr's give you meds that cause problems you have to speak up and advocate for yourself - just as you did.

I would consider it. It's good to have this information on the Dr's special interests, something that isn't always so readily available. What is readily available that I like to use are how other patients rank the Dr, available on Healthgrades.com, and how other Dr's rank the Dr, available on...