Henrick Lundqvist Recovery

[JannerJohn]

This guy had the procedure I require and aside from his natural fitness I cant believe how quickly he has recovered. Does anybody know the details of his op was it minimally invasive or full sternotomy and what valve did he choose could he have had the Ross procedure. I can't understand how he has done it if he had a Bentall, new valve and ascending aorta graft with full zipper this is after 47 days.

Henrik Lundqvist returns to ice for first time since heart surgery - CBSSports.com

 

[pellicle]

This guy had the procedure I require and aside from his natural fitness I cant believe how quickly he has recovered

well I'm glad to read you're looking at it positively now.

I can say that I had regular full sternotomy and within 2 weeks at home was able to walk up my hill from the shops (a long steep one) faster than before I went into surgery.

About 8 weeks later I was back at University in classes (and riding my bicycle).

My only advantage was I was 28 ...

Best Wishes

 

[John K]

Two weeks after surgery with full sternotomy I started cardiac rehab and was able to exercise for the full 40 minutes. Within a month I had been released to office work and within 3 months back to light field work. I was 54.

John K

 

[BillDaThrill]

This guy had the procedure I require and aside from his natural fitness I cant believe how quickly he has recovered. Does anybody know the details of his op was it minimally invasive or full sternotomy and what valve did he choose could he have had the Ross procedure. I can't understand how he has done it if he had a Bentall, new valve and ascending aorta graft with full zipper this is after 47 days.

Henrik Lundqvist returns to ice for first time since heart surgery - CBSSports.com

As a hockey fan, have been following Lundqvist's surgery/recovery closely. Only thing that I could figure out was he had the surgery you mention at the Cleveland Clinic. Have asked on his twitter page for more details but so far, so silent. Happy to see he is doing incredibly well, even if I am an Islanders fan.

 

[slipkid]

Wow, had no idea he went through this. I know the Rangers have new goalies now and thought they cut him after an off year. Did not know he had health problems.

Best wishes to him despite being a Flyers fan and having him beat us so many times over the years. Although my fave Lundqvist memory is from 2010 when the Flyers played the Rangers on the very last day of the season with the winners making the playoffs and the losers heading to the golf course. That game ended up going to the shootout and HL being at the top of his game at the time had the best record in shootouts in the NL I believe, yet somehow we beat him & marched all the way to the cup finals in one of the greatest playoff runs in Flyers history, coming back from a 3-0 game deficit against the Bruins in the conference finals also being DOWN by a 3-0 score in the 2nd period of that game 7. What a crazy year that was....think we had 3 different goalies in the playoffs too because of injuries. Came sooo close to beating the Blackhawks in the finals.

 

[Chuck C]

This guy had the procedure I require and aside from his natural fitness I cant believe how quickly he has recovered. Does anybody know the details of his op was it minimally invasive or full sternotomy and what valve did he choose could he have had the Ross procedure. I can't understand how he has done it if he had a Bentall, new valve and ascending aorta graft with full zipper this is after 47 days.

Henrik Lundqvist returns to ice for first time since heart surgery - CBSSports.com

"The surgery was for an aortic valve replacement, aortic root and ascending aortic replacement"

I am not surprised. This would be called the Bentall procedure. It is more complicated than doing just the aortic valve. This is the exact procedure that I had done 8 days ago, and I started doing the stairs for my exercise today, with my surgeon's approval. I felt pretty good doing it. He is 47 days out and I think if someone were in good condition going in, by day 47 they could be doing very well.

 

[Chuck C]

This guy had the procedure I require and aside from his natural fitness I cant believe how quickly he has recovered. Does anybody know the details of his op was it minimally invasive or full sternotomy and what valve did he choose could he have had the Ross procedure. I can't understand how he has done it if he had a Bentall, new valve and ascending aorta graft with full zipper this is after 47 days.

Henrik Lundqvist returns to ice for first time since heart surgery - CBSSports.com

I went with a St. Jude mechanical valve and the St Jude dacron Hemashield to replace that part of my aorta. I don't think adding the aorta part makes recovery take any longer than doing just the aortic valve.

 

[JannerJohn]

I went with a St. Jude mechanical valve and the St Jude dacron Hemashield to replace that part of my aorta. I don't think adding the aorta part makes recovery take any longer than doing just the aortic valve.

Some fishing around from my surgeon he reckons Henrik Lundqvist almost definitely has had the Ross Procedure but he could also have had either human (autograft, homograft) or animal (porcine xenografts) just on the aorta/ aortic valve as he would never be able to return to contact sports (at competitive pro level) with Dacron Graft, Mech valve and anti-coagulation. In reality its probably unlikely he will ever return given his age but hopefully his life has been saved and possibly a less invasive procedure should the valve/s go belly up.

 

[Chuck C]

Some fishing around from my surgeon he reckons Henrik Lundqvist almost definitely has had the Ross Procedure but he could also have had either human (autograft, homograft) or animal (porcine xenografts) just on the aorta/ aortic valve as he would never be able to return to contact sports (at competitive pro level) with Dacron Graft, Mech valve and anti-coagulation. In reality its probably unlikely he will ever return given his age but hopefully his life has been saved and possibly a less invasive procedure should the valve/s go belly up.

Have you decided which valve to go with. How have you been?

 

[JannerJohn]

Have you decided which valve to go with. How have you been?

I'm ok thank you, could still be several months until surgery and I am still not fully decided. Personally I really do worry about warfarin and the clicking of a mechanical valve so I need to give the pros and cons very careful consideration. I'm leaning towards either the Edwards Resilla (Its a bit of a risk) or a Ross procedure at the moment. As my friend said its not always about quantity but quality of life and they may be correct.

 

[Chuck C]

I'm ok thank you, could still be several months until surgery and I am still not fully decided. Personally I really do worry about warfarin and the clicking of a mechanical valve so I need to give the pros and cons very careful consideration. I'm leaning towards either the Edwards Resilla (Its a bit of a risk) or a Ross procedure at the moment. As my friend said its not always about quantity but quality of life and they may be correct.

How old are you John? If I remember we are close to the same age. I'm 53. I went with a St Jude mechanical and glad that I did. I rarely notice the clicking. No one around me can ever hear the clicking. Sometimes if I am trying to go to sleep I can hear it- and clicking is not the right word. It is kind of a low thud. One night I was hearing it and I thought it might affect me trying to get to sleep, so I just turned up my HEPA air filter a littler louder, creating white noise if you will, and then I could not hear it at all.

Your friend who said that, was he trying to encourage you to get a tissue valve?

 

[JannerJohn]

I'm 50. Not really encourage as such, really just a question in terms of asking what I do and do not want and as you are aware Chuck the answer is unique really to each of us. Fundamentally what I want is not to have a Stenotic Bicuspid Valve and Ascending Aortic Aneurysm and to have the highest quality of life (knowing there are plenty of other risks in life and things that can get you in the end ha ha). Also I want not to have my life dominated by the repair. Personally I am worried I would obsess about the clicking of a mechanical valve and the potential real or perceived restrictions of warfarin etc. Therefore knowing it is higher risk and not a fix for life (but nobody knows what for life means) it potentially comes down to lifestyle and freedom from restrictions. At the moment I can do, eat, drink everything I want and I want to lose as little of this freedom as possible recognising this is a bit selfish as being a husband and father maybe the question is how can I get this sorted at the lowest risk ensuring I'm about as long as possible? It would allowing for operative complexity and risk appear that the Ross Procedure, a bio valve with interposition graft or Aortic Xenograft (Root (Possibly), Valve and Aorta) would be the best solution (people regularly get 15-20 years) from this accepting that either an additional OHS / TAVR or yet TBD procedure will support (with a fair wind) any additional life extension on failure of the tissue Valve/s. I am still processing all of this and trying to reconcile at times conflicting information often from a laymans perspective (me included) or unconscious bias e.g. I've had it done and therefore I need to qualify this to you (or themselves) its rather like being good at driving a car or experiencing driving a car doesn't make you qualified to design one. Ultimately its a decision I need supported by me, my family, my Interventional Cardiologist and the Cardiothoracic Surgeons and one I won't live (hopefully) to regret. That is not to say other peoples valuable and welcomed experiences will not all go into the mix.

 

[AZ Don]

Returning to the ice in 47 days is stunningly quick, but not stunning that he returned.

as he would never be able to return to contact sports (at competitive pro level) with Dacron Graft, Mech valve and anti-coagulation.

I can't speak to mechanical valve, anti-coagulation, and professional sports though many here participate at an amateur level, but it's my understanding that a Dacron Graft is the standard repair for an aortic aneurysm. That's what I had and I was in the pool swimming 2 months later, though not competitively. I would think that (Dacron Graft) is what Jeff Green had and it certainly didn't hold him back:
https://www.espn.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4703667/green-shows-heart-in-cleveland

 

[JannerJohn]

Returning to the ice in 47 days is stunningly quick, but not stunning that he returned.

I can't speak to mechanical valve, anti-coagulation, and professional sports though many here participate at an amateur level, but it's my understanding that a Dacron Graft is the standard repair for an aortic aneurysm. That's what I had and I was in the pool swimming 2 months later, though not competitively. I would think that (Dacron Graft) is what Jeff Green had and it certainly didn't hold him back:
https://www.espn.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4703667/green-shows-heart-in-cleveland

I don't believe it would be possible for any professional contact sportsman to have a mechanical prosthesis with anticoagulants as they would never get insured or permission to compete from the sports regulators. Even at formal amateur level anticoagulants are a contradiction against play on all contact sports for obvious reasons all other non formal activities e g. skiing, cycling are essentially undertaken at risk by the individual who is on blood thinners.
A dacron graft is still one of my options in terms of an interposition graft.

 

[pellicle]

Also I want not to have my life dominated by the repair

in which case a mechanical is the clear choice. They do not suffer from structural valve degradation and I read recently here that the monitoring frequency is up to 5 years ... perhaps 10.

So if you get anything else you will have your life dominated by the inevitable SVD, this is not a conjecture, this is a well known surgical fact for patients under 70 and its written into the surgical guidelines.

Guidelines on the management of valvular heart
disease (version 2012)
The Joint Task Force on the Management of Valvular Heart Disease of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS)


p31

The decision is based on the integration of several of the following factors
a Class of recommendation.
b Level of evidence.
c Increased bleeding risk because of comorbidities, compliance concerns,
geographic, lifestyle and occupational conditions.
d Young age (,40 years), hyperparathyroidism.
e In patients aged 60~65 years who should receive an aortic prosthesis, and those
between 65~70 years in the case of mitral prosthesis, both valves are acceptable
and the choice requires careful analysis of other factors than age.
f Life expectancy should be estimated .10 years, according to age, gender,
comorbidities, and country-specific life expectancy.
g Risk factors for thromboembolism are atrial fibrillation, previous
thromboembolism, hypercoagulable state, severe left ventricular systolic
dysfunction.

 

[JannerJohn]

The problem is the technical guidlines are in contradiction with the choice a lot of patients are making. In reality aortic valve replacement is very very rare in people aged 50 or below outside of forums like this I know and work with hundreds / thousands of people (my site where I work has 7000+) and I do not know anyone else so making a personal peer group choice is very difficult. Also my confidence at living to 70 is sadly very low at the moment and I will have to accept this. Most people with a fair wind live to a much older age. So either way this horrible illness dominates peoples lives and sometimes seems to effect almost every aspect of life. I am writing this laying in bed next to my youngest, it is early and I'm listening to the dawn chorus in almost complete silence. The thought of a ticking valve fills me with complete woe. Also (with the greatest of respect) some of these sites have people who have made hundreds sometimes thousands of comments this is not normal behaviour surely and partly demonstrates my fear of a life being dominated by an illness / affliction. Sadly there does not exist a one and done solution it appears.

 

[pellicle]

Sadly there does not exist a one and done solution it appears.

The mechanical is the closest there is. No contradictions, no ambiguity.

 

[JannerJohn]

The mechanical is the closest there is. No contradictions, no ambiguity.

So why are so many people choosing a tissue valve solution in my age group? It must quality of life. There is no ambiguity in accepting SVD and the need for additional surgery.

 

[pellicle]

So why are so many people choosing a tissue valve solution in my age group?

no idea ... its only logical for people who are:

• not suited to AC Therapy
• women wanting to have kids (probably not your age group)
• the person is such a dork that they won't be compliant with their warfarin

The only thing I can think of is that businesses like repeat business. Sell them Tissue and see them again (eventually if they don't die first).

I mean its pretty simple and outside of the USA its the done thing. I've sent this to you before, perhaps you didn't follow it through last time:

There is no ambiguity in accepting SVD and the need for additional surgery

agreed.

If you lived in Norway at your age you'd get a Mechanical. Probably Australia too *(unless there was something that predisposed you to not be compatible with it)

 

[JannerJohn]

I have watched this video and it seems like very old thinking, to suggest patients would not ask about hemodynamics or life expectancy seems very odd if not a bit condescending. I do not believe ethically at least in the UK repeat business is a driver. In the UK the choice is entirely mine. If the mechanical valve was quiet and required no warfarin then yes it would be more clear cut. My surgeons experience of the On-x valve with low INR for example has been very poor with a number of significant clotting events. But if the Ross, Xenograft or Resilia give you 15-20 years with possible less invasive sutureless or TAVR this seems equally compelling with potentially less restrictions. The various surgeons and valve manufacturers are very good at marketing a particular position or product it seems. I do agree without clear contradictions against one or other solutions the decision is incredibly hard as I am testament to. The only fact that seems clear from the data is that meeting an age matched population life expectancy is very unlikely in which case the quality of life seems of great importance.