From the Controversies article, this struck a cord, since it has been my own personal opinion: "[FONT=Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial, Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]A more plausible explanation for improved survival of patients with mechanical valves is, by contrast, the cumulative hemodynamic consequence of living with a degenerating bioprosthesis in place. Although primary tissue failure of bioprostheses may progress rapidly, some patients endure months or years of exposure to hemodynamically significant valvular regurgitation, stenosis, or both before critical prosthetic failure is identified and replacement is advised." My natural valve took 55 years to fail and there is a toll on the heart and cardovascular system that effects your physical ability and is visible by imaging. With a bioprothesis, you do it all over again.[/FONT]
[FONT=Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial, Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]I have a mechanical and chose it for two main reasons. First, I did not want a reoperation because of the trauma, the cost in money, time and to family. My career is not secure, so health insurance is not a given. Second, I did not want to suffer through valve degradation until I reached a statistical possibility of "sudden death syndrome" before the medical establishment decided it was time to replace the failing bio-valve. Been there, done that, didn't want to do it again. The information I got showed me that there is no good data to indicate for an individual that your bioprothesis would last any set period of time at my age of 55. There are people on this forum where it lasted 10-20 years and others less than 5. [/FONT]
