Nocturne
Well-known member
A year ago, I was fat and happy. OK, obese and happy. But at 5'7", 220 pounds, and 41 years of age, I had never had a serious medical issue before.
Then I suddenly had some issues that led to be getting diagnosed with hypogonadism (my testosterone level was a shocking 130 ng/dl, which is pretty high for a woman, but I'm a man and should have been around 600 or so!)
So began a year of pain and suffering, dealing with the joys of Clomid therapy (anxiety, crying jags, etc). I was worried about my future -- intensely worried, especially after I read that low T is linked to heart disease and some researchers have started to come around to the idea that it might accelerate heart disease... And after getting tested for the first time in 20 years I learned that my cholesterol sucked (185 LDL, 35 HDL, Triglycerides in the 80s). I had only started seeing my GP doc a year earlier, because I was concerned about my heart pounding briefly when I lay down to sleep every night. Was my heart irrevocably damaged?
I had already learned that obesity may have caused my hormonal problems and was determined to do something about it. I stopped drinking soda (had been drinking about a can a day). I started walking 30-45 minutes EVERY day. I changed my eating habits pretty drastically, looking for meatless and lower-fat alternatives as well as increasing fiber intake, switching to heart healthy cereal with ground flax, skim milk, eating a handful of nuts and a piece of dark chocolate every day, etc. The weight melted off, almost too quickly, and before long I was down to 170 and none of my clothes fit. I eventually drifted down to 165, within spitting distance of my ideal BMI, a total loss of 25% of my body weight. Lipids got better, although not as much as I'd hoped... Total is now 185 or so, 135 LDL and 39 HDL, Triglycerides at 44.
While the hormonal issues never went away as I'd hoped they would, at least I figured I was doing well by my heart and would live longer for the effort. At least I was preventing heart disease.
Somewhere in there my GP doc noticed a heart murmur. He assured me it was nothing to worry about but ordered an echocardiogram anyway, just to check.
Obviously, it wasn't nothing, as I'm here posting this today. At 42 years of age I was diagnosed with aortic sclerosis with "very mild" stenosis. The velocity of blood leaving my valve is 2.36 m/sec, a bit below the 2.5 cutoff I have read about but double the normal velocity. Mean pressure gradient is 13, again below the usual for mild stenosis but double what is normal. I learned all of this a week ago.
What a kick in the teeth. After a year of living well and getting my heart health in order -- too little, too late.
I hadn't seen a doc for anything other than sinus infections and ER visits in almost two decades... I kept kicking myself over that. If I'd just learned about my lipids five years earlier...
And of course I got online and read information that led me to believe that aortic stenosis progresses from mild to severe in 10 years, requiring surgery that will give a 50 year old about 15 more years of life on average. I was going to die at 65? I have four kids, a wife I really love... I was JUST starting to start to feel somewhat normal after lowering my Clomid dose... And here I was terrified all over again!
Then I went to an actual cardiologist who guesstimated that I might have 20 years before I needed surgery, and told me that lifespan after surgery was probably much better than 15 years on average, but we don't know that yet because people getting the better surgeries and followup care today haven't died yet. It made some sense. I came here and learned that Arnold Shwartzenegger had an aortic valve replacement almost 20 years ago -- in 1997! -- and is clearly still alive and active. I started to feel a bit better.
I'm still scared. I'm still worried about what I should and should not eat (especially after reading about the "aortic stenosis obesity paradox"!). I'm worried about my sexual health -- the low T hit me there already, and I can't imagine that a heart valve issue will help any. And I've been so scared, for so long, already. I'm worried about dying young; I always expected I'd see 85, and now I wonder if I'll live to see 70.
So that's my story. Hello all! Hoping to get some good info from folks on the ground here. Hope you're all doing well.
P.S. No mention of my having a bicuspid valve from any of the health care providers I have spoken to. Getting a calcium scoring test done on my heart in a week to see if there is catastrophic damage to the rest of it. 42 is abnormally young to have aortic stenosis without a bicuspid valve, as I understand it.
Then I suddenly had some issues that led to be getting diagnosed with hypogonadism (my testosterone level was a shocking 130 ng/dl, which is pretty high for a woman, but I'm a man and should have been around 600 or so!)
So began a year of pain and suffering, dealing with the joys of Clomid therapy (anxiety, crying jags, etc). I was worried about my future -- intensely worried, especially after I read that low T is linked to heart disease and some researchers have started to come around to the idea that it might accelerate heart disease... And after getting tested for the first time in 20 years I learned that my cholesterol sucked (185 LDL, 35 HDL, Triglycerides in the 80s). I had only started seeing my GP doc a year earlier, because I was concerned about my heart pounding briefly when I lay down to sleep every night. Was my heart irrevocably damaged?
I had already learned that obesity may have caused my hormonal problems and was determined to do something about it. I stopped drinking soda (had been drinking about a can a day). I started walking 30-45 minutes EVERY day. I changed my eating habits pretty drastically, looking for meatless and lower-fat alternatives as well as increasing fiber intake, switching to heart healthy cereal with ground flax, skim milk, eating a handful of nuts and a piece of dark chocolate every day, etc. The weight melted off, almost too quickly, and before long I was down to 170 and none of my clothes fit. I eventually drifted down to 165, within spitting distance of my ideal BMI, a total loss of 25% of my body weight. Lipids got better, although not as much as I'd hoped... Total is now 185 or so, 135 LDL and 39 HDL, Triglycerides at 44.
While the hormonal issues never went away as I'd hoped they would, at least I figured I was doing well by my heart and would live longer for the effort. At least I was preventing heart disease.
Somewhere in there my GP doc noticed a heart murmur. He assured me it was nothing to worry about but ordered an echocardiogram anyway, just to check.
Obviously, it wasn't nothing, as I'm here posting this today. At 42 years of age I was diagnosed with aortic sclerosis with "very mild" stenosis. The velocity of blood leaving my valve is 2.36 m/sec, a bit below the 2.5 cutoff I have read about but double the normal velocity. Mean pressure gradient is 13, again below the usual for mild stenosis but double what is normal. I learned all of this a week ago.
What a kick in the teeth. After a year of living well and getting my heart health in order -- too little, too late.
I hadn't seen a doc for anything other than sinus infections and ER visits in almost two decades... I kept kicking myself over that. If I'd just learned about my lipids five years earlier...
And of course I got online and read information that led me to believe that aortic stenosis progresses from mild to severe in 10 years, requiring surgery that will give a 50 year old about 15 more years of life on average. I was going to die at 65? I have four kids, a wife I really love... I was JUST starting to start to feel somewhat normal after lowering my Clomid dose... And here I was terrified all over again!
Then I went to an actual cardiologist who guesstimated that I might have 20 years before I needed surgery, and told me that lifespan after surgery was probably much better than 15 years on average, but we don't know that yet because people getting the better surgeries and followup care today haven't died yet. It made some sense. I came here and learned that Arnold Shwartzenegger had an aortic valve replacement almost 20 years ago -- in 1997! -- and is clearly still alive and active. I started to feel a bit better.
I'm still scared. I'm still worried about what I should and should not eat (especially after reading about the "aortic stenosis obesity paradox"!). I'm worried about my sexual health -- the low T hit me there already, and I can't imagine that a heart valve issue will help any. And I've been so scared, for so long, already. I'm worried about dying young; I always expected I'd see 85, and now I wonder if I'll live to see 70.
So that's my story. Hello all! Hoping to get some good info from folks on the ground here. Hope you're all doing well.
P.S. No mention of my having a bicuspid valve from any of the health care providers I have spoken to. Getting a calcium scoring test done on my heart in a week to see if there is catastrophic damage to the rest of it. 42 is abnormally young to have aortic stenosis without a bicuspid valve, as I understand it.
