Mitral valve repair - after effects

[Solar Rays]

Im 15 months post mitral valve repair. I'm feeling great and exercising consistently. I wore an event device for a month after experiencing A fib once and the device showed that I have some irregular beats so I have to take coumidan for life. Anyone else experience this?

 

[Zoltania]

Not I. I've had some PACs/PVCs, but no AFib that I know of, and no Coumadin after the first three months post-op.

 

[Catie]

Sorry to hear this, Zoltania! I had post-operative afib, for which three months of warfarin and Amiodarone sufficed, because my heart calmed down after a few weeks.

 

[gerrychuck]

Yes, I had AFib starting in ICU after my mitral replacement. It was paroxysmal for a long time, but wearing a monitor for 2 weeks at the end of 2017 (5 years later) showed it was there over 90% of the time at that point. Interestingly, strips run in the past couple of months have showed sinus rhythm. I took amiodorone for the first month or so after surgery, and since then treatment has just been rate control with metoprolol. I was on warfarin for life anyway because of my mechanical valve, so that wasn't an issue.

 

[TrishM]

Im 15 months post mitral valve repair. I'm feeling great and exercising consistently. I wore an event device for a month after experiencing A fib once and the device showed that I have some irregular beats so I have to take coumidan for life. Anyone else experience this?

 

[TrishM]

Im 15 months post mitral valve repair. I'm feeling great and exercising consistently. I wore an event device for a month after experiencing A fib once and the device showed that I have some irregular beats so I have to take coumidan for life. Anyone else experience this?

I experienced A Fib a couple of times in the few weeks prior to my Mitral Valve Repair so they did a surgical ablation at the same time. That was 2 years ago this month and I have stayed in sinus rhythm since as far as I’m aware. However, I do have a lot of ectopics (7000ish a day) and for this reason they have said they want me to stay on anticoagulant…. Apixaban. I thought after surgical ablation which is apparently successful…so far… that I would be able to come off but they are not suggesting it. It’s a nuisance because I have side effects.

 

[johnp]

I had significant v tach before surgery, it got better after.
i had a maze procedure done when I had the valve job. Not much Afib at all. V tech was still a problem, so they ablated around the valve and gave me Flecainide

 

[epstns]

Rays - Can you tell us more about your incidents of AFIB? Even with my beta blocker and pacemaker, I still occasionally have bouts of AFIB. My electrophysiologist says that unless the AFIB incidents are consistently over 4 hours in length, she would not prescribe warfarin. She says that bouts shorter than the 4 hours are not at all likely to result in clot formation.

My AFIB incidents are usually only seconds, or maybe a few minutes, so no warfarin for me.

Do you have enough data to know how long you are in AFIB? If only short periods of time, maybe warfarin for life is over-reacting?

 

[Solar Rays]

Epstns Sorry for the late reply. I had to look up my results to tell you what arrythmias I was experiencing while wearing the event device. I had only one A-Fib incident that was 23 days after mitral valve repair surgery. The others are PVC
SV Salvo, SVPC and PAT. So those are premature ventricular contractions, Ventricular Contractions, Supra Ventricular Contractions, Premature Atrial Contractions, My NP at cardiologists office said they were rare and lasted only seconds. I usually don't feel anything. Once in awhile I may feel a palpitation. I exercise consistently, heart rate is very good and BP is good, but I still need to be on coumidan.

 

[Protimenow]

I experienced A Fib a couple of times in the few weeks prior to my Mitral Valve Repair so they did a surgical ablation at the same time. That was 2 years ago this month and I have stayed in sinus rhythm since as far as I’m aware. However, I do have a lot of ectopics (7000ish a day) and for this reason they have said they want me to stay on anticoagulant…. Apixaban. I thought after surgical ablation which is apparently successful…so far… that I would be able to come off but they are not suggesting it. It’s a nuisance because I have side effects.

Drug reps (detail people) do a great job of convincing physicians that they shouldn't prescribe warfarin, instead prescribing the much more expensive anticoagulants.

If you're having side effects from the Apixaban, ask your doctor if you can take warfarin instead - it's a daily dose, you should check your INR weekly, but it has a long history of use by millions of patients, has few or no side-effects, is easily managed, and is inexpensive. The 'horrors' of warfarin are a myth - many of us on this forum have had years of uneventful experience with it.

Unless your doctor can give you a rational reason NOT to switch from Apixaban to warfarin, you should consider switching to a less expensive, easily managed, once daily medication with 50 or more years of results.

 

[tom in MO]

Apixaban is Eliquos. It has some features that make it superior than warfarin for some problems that require anticoagulation. The primary advantage is INR stability thus not requiring routine testing and occasional dose adjustments...just "set it and forget it." It also has fewer drug interactions than warfarin.