Aortic Valve Replacement Surgery

[rmfsmom]

I am very new to this valve issue - and I am hoping that you all can shed a little more light on this subject.

My dad is 80 - soon to be 81. While I have spent many a day with him in the hospital for various reasons and am very well versed in medication, heart rhythms, CHF (too much on that subject let me tell you) and more, I am having a hard time find a lot of information on AVB surgery.

Has anyone had this done? If so when and where? Performed by what Doctor? Recovery time? How feeling after surgery? and anything else I would need to know.

My dad has a 28 year history of heart trouble, from heart attacks, to carotid surgery, to afib, to OH to now valve surgery.

He has been going steadily down hill since Xmas and now we have been told it's time for valve surgery - one DR said it is the AVB or nothing! Two others are investigating VR or AVB depending on the latest CAT scan results, TEE, and Cath.

I have always been one that felt the more information I had the better off I was. So I have searched and searched and found this forum and I think finally I might have found the right place.

So please if you can shed any more light on AVB surgery or even the VR surgery and what he can expect at his age I would be forever grateful. Right now we are tentatively scheduled for the 2nd week of July at Hopkins.

Thanks in advance.

 

[PJmomrunner]

Hi RMFS:

Sorry your dad is facing another heart problem/surgery. AVB is a new one on me, but someone will surely come along with some words of wisdom for you. From a single search on Google it would seem University of Maryland is orchestrating a newfangled come-back for this procedure. (You've probably seen these links, but I thought I'd throw them in here anyway, just in case.) There has been a little bit of discussion of percutaneous AVR on this website and I've attached a link to a recent story about that.

All the very best to you both.


http://www.umm.edu/heart/avb.html

http://www.ismics.org/abstracts/2006/MP9.cgi

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/CHF/tb/720

 

[afraidofsurgery]

Avb

Avb

Wow, what will they think of next? I'm so sorry to hear your Dad's not doing well and you are both facing such a difficult decision. My Dad had a lobe of his lung removed at 76 years and I thought they were nuts for subjecting him to that surgery. He came through it fine, but I was really worried.

It sounds like the concern is your Dad's ability to withstand OHS. If that's the case, then the AVB surgery that doesn't involve the sternum-cracking, heart/lung machine surgery sounds like a good alternative. What hospital will he get it done at? Does his doctor have experience doing this?

Thoughts and prayers,
Patty

 

[Nancy]

We have a member here who has an apico conduit. Her member name is ticktock. You could look her up on the member list and email her through this site or send her a private message. She's had this in place for a long time.

Here is a post about her conduit.

http://valvereplacement.com/forums/showthread.php?t=622&highlight=apico

 

[rmfsmom]

Thank you all - my dad was admitted again this morning - what a way to spend Father's Day! But the safest place for him to be right now.

I have read Mindy's original post and it sounds like that is very similar if not the same as the AVB they have been talking about. SHe is so right also that everyone has different "specs" (for lack of a better word) than everyone else and the doctor has to be able to punt in the operating room when needed.

We have researched University of Maryland and the doctor there and unfortunately my dad is not comfortable with him at all - he makes him feel like a "practice" dummy not a man with a heart problem. If we chose him he would not be going into surgery in a good frame of mind, and I need him to know that going in he is coming out just fine. Heck he had a job to go back to asap!

Dr. Cameron has also said preliminarily this morning that they may be able to go through his sternum for a regular valve replacement - so next question - after OHS how is recovery from the replacement?

What can we expect from rehab? I have made him swear up and down that he will do everything that they say he has to do but maybe I need to prepare him up front.

Seems like surgery will be pushed up to maybe the week of the 26th since he is back in the hospital today.

Thanks and please keep the info coming - I really appreciate it.

 

[Der Biermeister]

- so next question - after OHS how is recovery from the replacement? What can we expect from rehab? .

Now you've asked the RIGHT question. Volumes and volumes are stored in the archives, but simply begin your search by typing in "post-op". Responses are going to run the full gamut from boring (mine, Marguerite's, and bunch of others, to "not so boring" as with Aussie Gal. But the common line that runs through most all of them is that we persevere.

 

[Rich]

Sorry your father is having such problems at his age.
I don't know anything about AVB.
Would he be a candidate for replacement via catheter?
A local man who I had the priviledge of meeting was the first to have this done in the USA.
He was 78 at that time and could not withstand open heart surgery.
Now over a year later he is doing just fine.
Rich