Kevin's Profile

Kevin's Story Kevin was diagnosed with bicuspid aortic valve as a child. He was relatively unaffected by the abnormal valve through out his life. Being primarily asymptomatic, he didn't do much follow up the condition medically. In spite of all of this there was an underlying concern about heart issues in the family. Several of the men in his family had died of heart attacks in their early 50's, including his father and grandfather. The details of their heart attacks were unknown. In November of '09, Kevin had an episode in which he fainted two times in the bathroom in the middle of the night. We speculated that the fainting may have been brought on by a cholesterol medicine called niaspam. Paramedics were called and they determined that his blood pressure was too low and that he should be seen in the emergency room. After spending several days in the hospital and going through many tests, it was determined that he had an aortic root aneurysm, dilated to 5.2cm. The bicuspid valve looked to be functioning well. Three months later, at a follow up exam, the aorta appeared to have continued to dilate. With our cardiologist's support, we began interviewing surgeons. He is planning to have the surgery within the next month.