Mitral Valve Replacement

I was shown a video of the open heart surgery process and samples of both artificial and pig valves. I don't mind telling you that at that point, I was scared to death. I'd had A-Fib for thirteen years, but upon hearing that news, my heart began to pound hard, like never before.

I was my heart surgeon's 30th office patient that day, and he was really all business. He is an excellent heart surgeon who specializes in valves, but he didn't have the time or the inclination to calm my fears or answer my questions.

The truth is, at that time, I didn't have my wits about me enough to think of any questions, much less ask them. I just sat there on the end of the exam table, stunned.

When I calmed down enough to get my head around the idea of Heart Valve Surgery, I had a gazilion questions about the particulars of the looming surgery. With the help of a friend, I started doing some serious open heart surgery research. The question at the top of my list was, what were my chances of surviving this serious surgery?

image credit

Overwhelmingly, Valve Surgery patients do survive. In fact, with today's vastly improved cardiac surgery equipment and techniques, there is only a very small chance that you won't make it.

These valve surgeries have become so routine that the survival rate is off the charts. Yes, there is risk, but no more so than driving in your car in today's traffic. There are some 750,000 thousand heart surgeries performed worldwide and 250,000 of them are heart valve repair and replacements.

The fact is that the mortality rate for heart valve replacement surgery is only 2.4%. This was a comforting statistic for me and it should be for you too. Most of us can get through anything as long as we know that there is a darn good chance we'll survive.

After your mitral valve replacement surgery, your heart surgeon or cardiologist should recommend a good cardiac rehabilitation facility.

One of the main reasons these cardiac rehab places are so wonderful is that you are closely monitored the entire time you are exercising. I feel totally safe exercising at my cardiac rehab facility, and I've been literally amazed at how rapidly I have improved.

In my own case, my heart had grossly enlarged, and due to my severely damaged valves, I went into Congestive Heart Failure. I could barely walk across the room, much less exercise. My muscles had atrophied down to almost nothing.

Now, only two months post surgery, I'm doing 60 minutes of continuous cardio exercise, and I've observed many others making similar progress.

When I first went to my cardiac rehab orientation, it was only three weeks after my surgery, and at that time, I felt very weak, vulnerable and protective of my chest. The exercise equipment and all the excitement made me feel anxious. One female cardiac rehab patient was going ninety to nothing on a Nu-Step machine and it plain scared me silly to just watch her.

I've seen, within just a few short weeks, mitral valve replacement and other heart valve surgery patients go from using oxygen and walking on a walker to exercising without oxygen on four or five different machines.

image credit

When I was doing my research on valve replacement surgery, the little book that really calmed my nerves the most was Adam Pick's book entitled, A Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. Read more about this wonderful resource here.

Adam addresses so many of your real concerns in a head-on fashion and he gives you literally dozens of tips on how to prepare for your valve replacement surgery.

It's written in plain language that anyone cal easily understand, and reading his "right-on-target" book, is the easiest and quickest way to reduce your anxiety and stress over open heart surgery. He tells you what you can expect every step of the way, and he covers so many issues that you might not ever think of on your own.

To me, knowing what to expect was really more than half the battle, but then I never like to be blind-sided by anything. Check it out, I can't recommend it highly enough.

I am a participant in the Clickbank Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to clickbank.com.