{"id":939,"date":"2009-09-30T09:07:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T14:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/09\/30\/vegetarian-aortic-pig-valve-replacement-patient\/"},"modified":"2019-02-26T21:10:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T02:10:54","slug":"vegetarian-aortic-pig-valve-replacement-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/09\/30\/vegetarian-aortic-pig-valve-replacement-patient\/","title":{"rendered":"Ironic: Vegetarian Kept Alive By Pig Valve Replacement?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess this patient success story would classify as ironic.<\/p>\n<p>According to The Scottish Sun, a vegetarian teenager from Scotland, who was suffering from a rare cardiac condition, is now being kept alive by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2007\/09\/19\/pig-valve-replacement\/\">pig heart valve replacement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22183\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/wpid-article-1322508672285-0ef8347100000578-678425_466x414.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"466\" height=\"414\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Robyn Cairney, 18, of Ruckazie, Glasgow was diagnosed with aortic stenosis and regurgitation after she collapsed at the gym. Over time, the condition caused her aorta to narrow, which allowed blood to dangerously flow back to her heart. The most common symptom is shortness of breath with exertion, resulting in some patients feeling \u201cout of shape,\u201d according to the American Heart Association.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It came totally out of the blue,\u201d Cairney told <em>The Sun<\/em>. \u201cI was at the gym and became unwell during a mile run. I couldn&#8217;t breathe and wouldn&#8217;t stop coughing. Then my lips started turning blue and I knew that something was seriously wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/leaking-heart-valve-symptoms.php\">valve becomes excessively obstructed or leaky<\/a>, the valve must be repaired or replaced.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The doctors told me that I would need to have a valve taken out and replaced by one from a pig,\u201d Cairney said. &#8220;It was a bit of a shock being a vegetarian, but I realized it was a life or death choice. Obviously everyone is going to pick life, so now I&#8217;m a vegetarian being kept alive by a pig.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cairney was fitted with the pig&#8217;s valve during open heart surgery at the Golden Jubilee Hospital near Glasgow. This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-valve-replacement.php\">type of valve replacement<\/a> could last for 20 years. Cairney may have to undergo surgery in the future to have a mechanical valve fitted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m just glad I can get on with my life now and am determined to make the most of everything I do,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin&#8217; Robyn!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heart-valve-replacement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}