Guestbook of Kate Watson

Kate Watsongot a new guestbook post

20 minutes ago

Ruth joy posted a note for Kate that says:

Hi Kate ,
Try and get your iron levels up .
It can be difficult to get iron by diet if your appetite is poor or if you can ‘t tolerate iron pills .
There ...Read more

Kate Watson Hi Mike, I’m just now seeing my messages and I actually wrote a long response to you that disappear ... Read more

Mike Wynn Thank you Kate - I would like to read your post.

Kate Watson Hi Mike, I thought I would just go ahead and post here about your question. Warning it’s a long sto ... Read more

Kate Watson Hi Mike, I thought I would just go ahead and post here about your question. Warning it’s a long story and I have a feeling this is going to post funny on this platform. There was a period of time where I felt good after getting my On-x valves. But it was fairly short-lived and I noticed shortness of breath over time again on inclines, etc. Of course I had my yearly echocardiograms and they always said it was fine. I even went to several different cardiologists over the years because some of them had moved around. I did notice that the gradient was elevated on my aortic valve on these echo test results and the cardiologists would have a number of reasons for that, such as saying they are often high in mechanical valves or different things influence the gradient, and that I just needed to slowly increase my cardio exercise. To be honest, I was in a bit of denial myself because it didn’t occur to me that it was possible for a mechanical valve to fail early because they were supposed to last my lifetime, so I went on for years and just dealt with the shortness of breath since it was only on inclines at that time.

When we moved to California this year, I started seeing a new cardiologist at Stanford. She’s very sharp and I told her about that shortness of breath and how I just can’t improve my cardio capacity and feel terrible when I try. I was sent for echo stress test and I immediately knew something was wrong because of the technicians response. The attending cardiologist wouldn’t allow them to push me very hard on the stress test and it turned out my gradient was extremely high before and after exercise! After that I was sent for a CT scan and that’s when pannus overgrowth was found, and was obstructing the opening of my aortic valve. My heart had just adapted to a crappy level over years so it was subtle enough for a while. But my condition declined quickly in the months that followed and I started getting winded just doing regular stuff again (laundry, garbage).
According to my latest surgeon, he felt the reason this happened was because my On-x valves (I had two) were undersized which allowed for the pannus growth but says this is also why I never felt good with cardio. How the chief of cardiothoracic surgery in a good Seattle hospital put undersized valves in me 9 years ago I will never understand. And how several cardiologists completely ignored my symptoms and the elevated gradient is beyond me.
But I will never again ignore symptoms if I have them again and won’t back down if I don’t get answers. So please do the same if ever you feel symptoms returning.

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