athena53
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 11, 2014
- Messages
- 7,412
I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse 2+ years ago so that part is not new. What I noticed from the beginning is breathlessness on exertion-have had to scale back my workouts, avoid bicycling uphill, take it easy walking uphill...not awful in the grand scheme of things at almost 71 years old but still I whine about it and want things to be the way they were. Overall picture is good- calcium score is 1, took a treadmill test early on and cardiologist has never ordered a repeat, BP and weight at healthy levels, no other health issues.
I went for my annual echocardiogram January 18 and found the results posted this AM. Ejection fraction WAS stable at 65-70%. Now it's 55-60%. I'd almost convinced myself it wasn't getting worse. My biggest fear is having it get to the point where I really need to curtail my activities- I'm an avid traveler and I love the bicycle path behind my house (old RR bed, so pretty much level) in nice weather.
So..I consulted Dr. Google, of course. Looks like I'm not a candidate for surgery unless it gets worse. The stats I see on success for surgery look pretty good, both the open-heart version and trans-catheter, but I see anecdotes elsewhere of people getting surgery and not noticing any improvement at all.
Can anyone tell me about their own experience or that of people they know with mitral valve prolapse? Fortunately I meet with the cardiologist on Tuesday (1/23) so I do have a plan to get an expert opinion. He's been very supportive of my exercise, diet, etc. and has been very much "If its not too broken, don't try and fix it". I prefer minimal medical intervention on most things as well but I'd LOVE to get this fixed.
Thanks for any input you can provide.
I went for my annual echocardiogram January 18 and found the results posted this AM. Ejection fraction WAS stable at 65-70%. Now it's 55-60%. I'd almost convinced myself it wasn't getting worse. My biggest fear is having it get to the point where I really need to curtail my activities- I'm an avid traveler and I love the bicycle path behind my house (old RR bed, so pretty much level) in nice weather.
So..I consulted Dr. Google, of course. Looks like I'm not a candidate for surgery unless it gets worse. The stats I see on success for surgery look pretty good, both the open-heart version and trans-catheter, but I see anecdotes elsewhere of people getting surgery and not noticing any improvement at all.
Can anyone tell me about their own experience or that of people they know with mitral valve prolapse? Fortunately I meet with the cardiologist on Tuesday (1/23) so I do have a plan to get an expert opinion. He's been very supportive of my exercise, diet, etc. and has been very much "If its not too broken, don't try and fix it". I prefer minimal medical intervention on most things as well but I'd LOVE to get this fixed.
Thanks for any input you can provide.