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Newly diagnosed and/or living with ascending aortic aneurysm…anxiety
Aortic Aneurysms | Last Active: Aug 17 10:10am | Replies (89)Comment receiving replies
Hi i also was diagnosed with a 5.0cm aortic root aneurism by accident a physical they also said they will watch it every 6 months but most stuff on google say surgery at 5.0 so I’m also scared
Did u have surgery yet?
Replies to "Hi i also was diagnosed with a 5.0cm aortic root aneurism by accident a physical they..."
I had two open heart surgery to repair a sudden Type A1 ascending aortic arch dissection. It's a nightmare and you're very unlikely to survive it if you have a complete dissection. Coma, stroke, disaster, repeat. So, if your doctor is telling you to have surgery, get a second opinion (immediately) and then have the surgery. If you're afraid of surgery, don't be. It's a far easier than trying to survive an aorta blowing out and bleeding to death inside your chest cavity. In the time it takes to get an ambulance to your location (who can frankly do nothing to help the blood loss you are experiencing inside your chest) you can easily bleed to death.
You aorta is a little larger than a garden hose. If you saw a huge bulge in your garden hose, you would turn off of the water and replace the hose. That's what an aortic aneurysm is like. I survived mine, but only because I was in San Diego near a huge cardiac surgical center (UCSD La Jolla), paramedics arrived to my hotel quickly (2.5 minute response in Old Town San Diego at 1:30 a.m. on a quiet Sunday night), I had the Chief of Thoracic Surgery n call with 40 years experience (Dr. Anthony Perricone) and I was lucky as lucky can get. I ignored my high blood pressure and thought aneurysms were only in the movies.
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No. My December scan showed me holding steady at 5 cm. My surgeon is kind of old-school. He still goes by the 5.5 cm. It may be in part that my aortic aneurysm genetic panel came back without connective tissue disorder variants they commonly look for. I also quit smoking years ago and am female and 54 years old. I think he thinks that I'm an unlikely candidate for dissection or rupture.
I hope he's right. I would prefer to wait until the FDA approves new stent technology for this area of the aorta. They are close. The procedure has been done for years on high risk patients who would not survive open-heart surgery with the bypass. Results have not been great, but these have been the highest risk patients.
I'm trying to get my autoimmune disease officially diagnosed. It looks like Behcet's. I have the dilated pulmonary artery going on, too. Rheumatology (at Brigham & Women's and Beth Israel) has been a nightmare to deal with, though.