Is it possible to feel a biological valve?

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Mentu

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My surgery was performed at Oklahoma Heart Institu
Hi, everyone, Tomorrow my AVR will be 4 weeks past and things continue to go well. I feel stronger now when I walk and on most days I no longer take a nap. My question for you, however, Is it possible to feel a bioprosthetic valve? For several days now when I do something that causes my heart to beat more strongly for a few minutes I feel each beat as a thump in the upper part of my chest. Have any of you experienced such a sensation? I've been wondering if the stent, the hard part of the valve that supports the leaflets, can be causing the very pronounced bump or thump. There is no other sensation like there was with palpitations that left me feeling ill; it is just a thump.
 
Hi, everyone, Tomorrow my AVR will be 4 weeks past and things continue to go well. I feel stronger now when I walk and on most days I no longer take a nap. My question for you, however, Is it possible to feel a bioprosthetic valve? For several days now when I do something that causes my heart to beat more strongly for a few minutes I feel each beat as a thump in the upper part of my chest. Have any of you experienced such a sensation? I've been wondering if the stent, the hard part of the valve that supports the leaflets, can be causing the very pronounced bump or thump. There is no other sensation like there was with palpitations that left me feeling ill; it is just a thump.

I have the same valve as you, but I haven't experienced a thump.
 
You may be experiencing a palpitation and feeling it as a heavier beat. In any event, it's your heartbeat that you're feeling.

You can't feel a tissue valve. It's soft. Even the stent is very thin and highly flexible. It's also pressed into your aortic wall and doesn't move, so the stent wouldn't feel separate in any way.

Best wishes,
 
If you had a stenotic valve before surgery, your heart muscles became used to pumping against that small opening. It takes time for them to 'recondition' to your new and bigger valve and may produce 'forceful' or pronounced heartbeats until those muscles do 'adjust' to the new valve.

'AL Capshaw'
 
I felt strong heartbeats, even thumps, for several months after my valve replacement, though I don't know if this might be what you are describing.

Besides the other replies to your question, I finally realized that, for me, it had been such a long time since my heart, with its defective and deteriorating bicuspid valve and faulty-working mitral valve, had actually had any kind of a normal beat -- my heart just sloshed before the valve replacement -- that perhaps more normal beats were sort of a new sensation to me.

Oh also, innocuous PVC arrhythmias can cause the feeling of strong thumps or skipped beat sensations.

Maybe you can make a note of it to ask your doctor the next time you see him/her? Might be reassuring for you. Take care :) .
 
I don't know if this is to what you are referring, but sometimes, when I am in bed, and it is quiet, I can "hear" my heartbeat. Most times I can't.
 
I am in exactly the same boat as you, valve wise, and have also on occasion "heard" my tisue valve but nothing compared to the thumping with the old stenosed valve. In fact it is more an echo against the pillow when I lie down, it disappears when I move my head, than a definite heartbeat. My cardio gives the standard reply that it is my heart remodeling.
 

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