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Aortic Aneurysms – Introduce yourself & meet others
Aortic Aneurysms | Last Active: Feb 25 9:23pm | Replies (624)Comment receiving replies
Hello all!
A year ago, after a calcium scan, my primary care doc connected me with a cardiologist and had me do an echo and CT scan. Those tests revealed a 4.5 cm ascending aortic aneurysm and some mild to moderate regurgitation. There is some question as to if I have a bicuspid valve, or a fused tri-leaflet valve.
My cardiologist and cardiothoracic surgeon said surgery wasn't immediately necessary. I'm a mid-50s M. They put my on a high dose of statin and a beta blocker and boosted my BP medication. (I've had hypertension for a few years.)
Fast forward to today. I just got my results from my echo from last week (still awaiting the CT scan results) According to the raw data in the echo, my AAA is now 4.6 cm and I now have a Sinus of Valsalva Aneurysm of 4.4 cm.
In addition to the results of the CT scan, I am awaiting analysis from my cardiologist and CT surgeon.
In the meantime I am a bit concerned. Would love your thoughts. Anyone else experience this?
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Mine was found at 5.2 cm after a MTB accident, also in my 50s, I do have a bicuspid valve which they are known for contributing to aneurysms (I knew about the valve before the aneurysm was discovered). I had surgery to repair aneurym 3 months after my leg surgery (from accident) as my aneurysm was large already and there was family history of burst aneurysms (they did not replace my valve as it was still highly functional). Do you know why they gave you statins? They gave them to me because there were some studies suggesting hey help reduce the possibilty of BAV calcification, not because of cholesterol. Over time I started getting muscle pain after exercised (I exercise quite often) and after consulting with Cardiologist he said could be the statins and asked me to stop them to see, he said the studies were less conclusive about whether they helped the valve anyway. I stopped them and after a while the pain went away. If yours is due to cholesterol that is a diferent story.
Anyway, you aneurysm is still on the small side, they get critical when they approach 5 cm (I've heard of people having surgery at 4.8 though, it depends on many factors). In the mean time, my recommendation is to keep yourself healthy, treat your body well, exercise, if you smoke stop, you want your body at its best for when and if you need surgery. Manage your BP, that's what the betablockers are for, but exercise helps even more.
It has been 5 years since surgery and I'm doing very well.
If you have more questions let me know, all the best to you!!!