Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone here have any aftermarket heart parts?

Welcome to the cyborg club.

Many of us would be dead by now without the many miracles of medical sinence.

My extra heart part is doing something in the kitchen right now.

Two Mitra Clips and a Watchman

My mom had Rheumatic fever as a kid in the 50's. She had severe damage to her mitral valve. In about '71 she had an experimental valve put in by Dr. Albert Starr. He was the inventor of a ball/cage valve that bore his name. The experimental part of the valve was that the ball was coated in Teflon and the cage with a poly polypropylene material. His hope was that the polypropylene was act as a bed for tissue to grow. That along with the Teflon would reduce the need for Cumadin.

Didn't turn out that way and she was on thinners the rest of her life. But she tolerated them quite well until the end.

She also had a noticeable 'tick-tick' that you could hear in a quiet setting. When she was asked by those who heard it for the first time if the noise bothered her she would respond, "No. Not hearing it would bother me."

Anyway fast forward to about 15 years ago. She woke up to not being able to catch her breath. The found out that her aortic valve was failing. The life flighted her from Arizona back to St. Vincent on Oregon. Her cardiologist and surgeon decided to replace both the aortic and mitral valve with a new St. Jude valve and is kind of like a two piece flapper.

Apparently she was the last person alive with the experimental valve. Turns out the polypropylene lost its adhesion to the cage and would slough off ending in thrombosis, clots in the lung, or stokes. Most people either had them replaced or had died from the clots.

I'd spoke with the surgeon before the surgery. He was your archetypal surgeon. Very self confident. He explained that after 30 plus years all the poly was probably gone and likely in her legs and she was lucky it hadn't caused any problems. He was confident that this would be a piece of cake.

After the surgery he came out and was obviously shook-up. You could see it in his face as he walked up.

After they cracked her chest they were able to get a sonogram right on the valve. Turned out the poly was still there and a long string of it (about 6 inches) was fluttering in the artery with each heartbeat.

Anyway the surgery was successful and she lived many more years.

Last March she was having problems with fibrillation and efficiency (40%). This was lingering effects from the Rheumatic fever. This also caused her to start having problems keeping her protine (Cumadin) level correct. The levels were sky high the day she went into the hospital. That night she got up to pee and passed out in the bathroom, hitting her head. She ended up with bleeding around her skull, but not in the brain. Still it was bad enough that she passed a few days later at 82.


Anyway, not trying to hijack or scare, Ted. Just felt the need to tell her story and to let you know that you will live a long life with that valve. She was told that she was not to expect to live much past her thirties.

She had them for 50+ years.

The doc will explain the % chances of complications based on same procedures to date. This varies with regard to type of valve and related surgical procedure - but varies much more with regard to condition/issues within the patient. For many it is pretty much a breeze, for a few it can be rough and tumble. I wish you smooth sailing and a great aftermath.

Not me but my dad had one of the first Albert Starr stainless steel birdcage aortic valves installed in 1973 or '74. In a quiet room you could hear the steel ball rattle up in the cage then fall down to settle on the ball seat. He had a second mitral one done in about '81. My mom learned to wake up whenever she didn't hear the valve rattle even at night. Way different now then back then. I know someone who had an aortic valve done and no major open the chest up like on dad. Docs sent a little folded up replacement valve into the heart by a catheter, once in place they "released" it to pop into full position and pretty much that was it. Dads first one was 3 weeks in the hospital, opened the chest up like cleaning an elk and sawed through the breastbone to insert the retractors. His chest hurt for months afterwards. The second was 10 times easier and nowadays, i9n comparison, the procedure is much quicker and less painful.

Not me but my dad had one of the first Albert Starr stainless steel birdcage aortic valves installed in 1973 or '74. In a quiet room you could hear the steel ball rattle up in the cage then fall down to settle on the ball seat. He had a second mitral one done in about '81. My mom learned to wake up whenever she didn't hear the valve rattle even at night. Way different now then back then. I know someone who had an aortic valve done and no major open the chest up like on dad. Docs sent a little folded up replacement valve into the heart by a catheter, once in place they "released" it to pop into full position and pretty much that was it. Dads first one was 3 weeks in the hospital, opened the chest up like cleaning an elk and sawed through the breastbone to insert the retractors. His chest hurt for months afterwards. The second was 10 times easier and nowadays, in comparison, the procedure is much quicker and less painful.

Uncle had a valve put in back in the 80’s.
You could hear it click. As a little kid I thought it was pretty cool. 😀

Oh yeah; I’ve got a defibrillator/pacemaker in since 06/05. Had an office visit where I was informed that I may have defective leads and programmed the device to beep 3X at 10:00 AM if there was a problem. Also set to kick in if my pulse dropped to 44. In June of 2020, I got a call from the clinic (125 miles away) wanting to know what I was doing and if I had suffered any trauma as a car wreck or a fall off a
ladder. I said no, that I was cooking breakfast and planned to cut grass as soon as the dew dried. They told me that was not a good idea, that they suspected I had a lead(s) to fracture and the background noise could cos my devise to shock me continuously and to park my butt in my recliner until the device rep came to my door. About 1:00 PM, he showed up with his laptop to shut down the device. I asked him how they would fix the problem. He said that a good heart surgeon could take a laser and burn the leads from the scar tissue in my heart. Only problem is that h could burn a hole in my heart and I would need immediate open heart surgery to repair it and they probably would not be able to save me even if they were there in the room. What most would choose was to cut the old leads, move the device to the other side of my chest and install new leads. I asked if he had been called out to shut one down in a dead person as my pastors father had died and the device was still working as should in the morgue. He replied that a month earlier, he had been called to a local funeral home with the same problem. Family had gathered to view the body and it was twitching. The staff thought that would upset the family.

I have a synthetic aortic root and valve, got it done Jan. 17 so we'll see how it works out as they lift my restrictions.

Interested to see how you fare, Schmidt.

What brand was your valve?

Yes,,29mm pig valve,a couple bypass's and a pacemaker.

I don't know the brand, the plan was a aortic root replacement and a valve rebuild. Apparently it was worse than the imaging showed and I woke up with a synthetic.

As am I.

About the only replacement parts I have are the four stents I had placed about 12 years ago. Got to the point I couldn't push the lawnmower around the yard even once without stopping to catch my breath. Went to see my doc and he sent me to a cardiologist the next day. Had the procedure a couple days after that- only because it was 4th of July weekend and nurses weren't available until Monday...

Brother had a five way bypass about the same time, but they used OEM parts - veins harvested from his legs and arms.

It's just plain amazing what surgeons can do these days with all the advancements ...