Causes for Aortic Stenosis......

[Vinny BoomBaatz]

I'm a candidate for Aortic valve replacement. I was told I have severe fibrocalific tricuspid stenosis with a valve area of 0.64cm. Could this have been avoided, also I hear nothing about preventive medicines. How does this condition occur and can one prevent it. (for the next guy)

 

[Rich]

They told me at the time it was most likely caused by rheumatic fever, which I did have when I was very young.
Rich

 

[tobagotwo]

What it sounds like you have is what is sometimes termed "senile aortic calcification," which may be due to inflammatory processes. It's the term they seem to give if they can't pinpoint a cause. It doesn't mean you're old, but it does generally occur in older people. I had it in my 40's and had my valve replaced at age 52.

It's not from what you eat, nor from sitting in your recliner. If someone tries to tell you it was caused by your lifestyle, by eating ____ (fill in the blank), because of dairy products, or any other preventable causation, they're whistling in the dark. Research has been unable to find any links, although they've tried. I have great cholesterol numbers, and my arteries are clean as a whistle. That doesn't help. Or hurt. It's not associated with other forms of arteriosclerosis either, although you may or may not have other forms of it at the same time as you have this.

There are no proven drug therapies for this. Studies have been done with anti-cholesterol drugs (statins), but no efficacy has been documented from them.

Of course, your lifestyle and what you eat can affect your health in other ways. But it doesn't cause AS, as far as anyone can prove.

It can definitely be caused by an earlier bout of Rheumatic fever or endocarditis as Rich pointed out. Or from some old-fashioned types of radiation therapies. Even if you don't recall a major illness, there is some possibility that there may be a link to an earlier bacterial or viral infection that touched the heart, causing some damage to the surface of the valve. There may also may be some link to gum disease in some cases. But the real answer is that they don't know.

So, you may invite anyone who tells you it's your own fault to go stuff it, and send them packing.

Best wishes,

 

[Vinny BoomBaatz]

Causes for Aortic Stenosis......

Thanks for the info....

 

[Nancy]

Here are three articles which might be helpful:


http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic40.htm

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic157.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/aortic-valve-stenosis/DS00418/DSECTION=3

 

[perkicar]

Yo Vinny!

My valve area was at 0.6 cm2 when I was told I needed surgery, although it had been creeping up on me for several years before that. Mine was from high dose radiation therapy to treat Hodgkin's disease in the late 70's--there are several others on the board who had the same reason for their valve replacement. I'm so glad I had mine done--I feel alot better!

 

[Marguerite53]

Nancy. I really like those links you provided. Are they in our Reference Sources section?? I didn't see them. THink they should be. Would you or Ross be so kind??

Thanks! Marguerite

 

[RCB]

Interesting topic

Interesting topic

________________________________________
RF and other autoimmune disease that can go undiagnosed in many people
till they affect the valves many years are for many a stealth disease process.
In my own case, they weren't sure if I had RF two or three times. They did
discover that 4 years after an attack while I was seven, my aortic valve had been reduced to just some small pieces of valve leaflets resulting in complete regurgitation. The surgeon remarked after the operation, that he had never seen such decimation of a valve in a living person.

My mitral valve was a different situation; it took 25 years till they noticed a problem and 10 more years till the decision to operate was necessary. Only instead of regurgitation, the problem was stenosis.

So the same disease, two different valves affected in two completely different ways and with different time periods!

To give life to Tobagotwo's last thought:

So, you may invite anyone who tells you it's your own fault to go stuff it, and send them packing.

People’s beliefs are not always grounded in knowledge. I few years ago a well meaning neighbor remarked that his grandmother ( who knew me as a young boy)
had told him that I never would have had heart disease if only I wouldn’t have had so much energy and that if my mother had disciplined me more often to settle me down , I never would have gotten sick.

Now I know that there are many here that would not want the rod to be spared on me , however I don’t think that cardiac surgeons have any fear of unemployment due to this type of thinking!

 

[jiniani]

Bicuspid valve

Bicuspid valve

In my case, it is congenital bicuspid aortic valve . Few years back my cardio told me not to restrict any activity unless I've symptoms - when the stenosis was @ 1cm sq. Now at 0.6cm sq, I'm waiting for the surgery to get a brand new spanking mech valve - probably with an area of 2cm at the minimum along with a Dacron (pipe) to fix ascending aorta. Is itn't that exciting!!!? to have more fuel flow through the body!.

Don't worry about stenosis, if it happened it happened. I've learnt to live with it. No regrets about the things I put in my stomach or the way I lived. Just enjoy, ur life. Stenosis is one of the things in your life that cannot be prevented if you are destined. Hopefully in feature they can find a way to blast this from your valve - like they do with kidney stones. For now take it coool.

cheers

 

[twinmaker]

Vinny, I started having symptoms of SOB when I climbed a flight of stairs or made a bed. Didn't think too much of it until an Army dentist ( my husband was in the Army) demanded that I have a murmur checked out before he would clean my teeth. I was 21 and had had my teeth cleaned my whole life. I also had been told about the murmur when I was younger but was told by my doctor that it was functional (not serious). Anyway, I was informed by an Army cardiologist, after some tests and a heart catherization, that I had mitral stenosis, hence my symptoms. I was also told that it was probably due to Rheumatic Fever. Problem was, I never knew I had Rheumatic Fever. Neither my parents nor I can ever remember me being that sick. The doc said I could have had a mild case of RF, but the damage was major. My first OHS was 5 months after this discovery. There are times that I sit and think about all my heart issues being caused by something I didn't even know that I had had. But that kind of thinking gets me nowhere. As you can see, sometimes things like this happen, and we have no control over them. LINDA