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@gloaming
Hi,
I had a stress echo at the Cleveland Clinic 20 years ago. It revealed a +1 mitral valve. In March of this year, the primary care physician ordered a resting echo. Then , she sent me to a cardiologist who ordered this latest stress echo. The doctor that interpreted the resting March echo also did this latest stress October echo. I’m thinking that the stress echo revealed the progression from +2 to +4. What do you think?
Anyway, I probably have to have it fixed before my heart is affected by the leak. So, I’m wondering if you have any opinions about various procedures, like conventional surgery, or some kind of minimally invasive surgery like robotic. I was looking at the MitraClip but it doesn’t seem to be very durable.
Lou
Replies to "@gloaming Hi, I had a stress echo at the Cleveland Clinic 20 years ago. It revealed..."
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@neronel I unfortunately have no experience with any of this. My problem has been with atrial fibrillation which has been stemmed mechanically through a procedure called catheter ablation (burning to create scarring around the areas where the spurious/extra/rogue signals emanate and cause the underlying substrate to contract and make false beats in chaotic rhythm).
Here is where you have to have faith in those who offer support and advice. If you intuitively trust your cardiologist or EP, and that person says a MitraClip will suffice, at least for this first attempt at remediation, I wouldn't be able to argue differently. If you were to read up on that device, maybe ask in fora where they discuss it, you might learn of limitations that make it somewhat iffy for you, or that it's the apparently best option for the present. I dunno...
Minimally invasive is always the least risky, but the operators are using touch 'n feel and a large screen to help them 'see' what their implements are doing buried about 8 cm inside your chest. Open heart gives them the use of their eyes directly, but you're also opened up. Personally this would be an easy pick for me, and it would be the minimally invasive...at least for a first attempt. It it's a bust, then Attempt the Second would be open chest.