Ely
New member
Hi everyone !
My first post on this forum will be for the anniversary of my AVR.. In july 2007 it was replaced with an ATS Medical mechanical model.
I've been fine since then, warfarin isn't that much of a burden. Only got one big scare 3 months ago when I had non-heart related surgery. I had to stop warfarin and bridge it with stings of heparin, and wasn't on blood thinners on the day of surgery.. 4 days later I was back to the hospital for feeling super bad in a subway station (couldn't focus, heart beating fast and loudly..). I got all the tests in the world (MRI, scanner, tens of blood samples..) except for TEE, and everything was fine. Docs said I probably got very anxious or had a small transient ischemic attack, although very unlikely.
This episode lead me to a big mistake which was to read all the medical studies on mechanical valves, where I saw scary words and numbers. I became very anxious for the past few months (hypochondriac) : a headache became a stroke, chest pain was a heart failure [...], but I'm sorting this out through sport, sleep and proper diet (I refused to take meds for now).
Like all of you with a mechanical valve, I can hear it at night when sleeping on the sides, so I prefer to stay on my back
.
Cheers
My first post on this forum will be for the anniversary of my AVR.. In july 2007 it was replaced with an ATS Medical mechanical model.
I've been fine since then, warfarin isn't that much of a burden. Only got one big scare 3 months ago when I had non-heart related surgery. I had to stop warfarin and bridge it with stings of heparin, and wasn't on blood thinners on the day of surgery.. 4 days later I was back to the hospital for feeling super bad in a subway station (couldn't focus, heart beating fast and loudly..). I got all the tests in the world (MRI, scanner, tens of blood samples..) except for TEE, and everything was fine. Docs said I probably got very anxious or had a small transient ischemic attack, although very unlikely.
This episode lead me to a big mistake which was to read all the medical studies on mechanical valves, where I saw scary words and numbers. I became very anxious for the past few months (hypochondriac) : a headache became a stroke, chest pain was a heart failure [...], but I'm sorting this out through sport, sleep and proper diet (I refused to take meds for now).
Like all of you with a mechanical valve, I can hear it at night when sleeping on the sides, so I prefer to stay on my back
. Cheers
