Replacement heart valve

Alton Turner Blackwood

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Apr 30, 2010
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27,483
A buddy of mine had open-heart surgery a couple of weeks ago to replace his faulty heart valve.

They replaced it with a titanium mechanical one.

He let me listen how it sounded yesterday and it literally sounds like an analog wall clock!

Any of you ever had to have a heart valve replaced?
 

Pineapple Smurf

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Aug 2, 2016
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43,435
Common operation
A friend of mine at work had a triple by pass op a few years ago
A friend in Gordons Bay had their 3 year old son also open heart surgery to repair a valve

Nothing new
 

Alton Turner Blackwood

Honorary Master
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
Messages
27,483
Common operation
A friend of mine at work had a triple by pass op a few years ago
A friend in Gordons Bay had their 3 year old son also open heart surgery to repair a valve

Nothing new
I know it's common. I just found the sound the titanium valve made interesting. Hell, I didn't even know replacement valves were made from titanium.
 

The_Mowgs

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Joined
Nov 23, 2009
Messages
17,910
A buddy of mine had open-heart surgery a couple of weeks ago to replace his faulty heart valve.

They replaced it with a titanium mechanical one.

He let me listen how it sounded yesterday and it literally sounds like an analog wall clock!

Any of you ever had to have a heart valve replaced?
Liefies sister's husband designed a machine that does stress testing on these valves to see after how many flaps they fail. They then got sheep and placed the pig heart flaps inside during an operation which was very successful.

I never knew they made them out of other materials but will ask him about it, very interesting.
 

Gordon_R

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Jul 5, 2009
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20,817
Liefies sister's husband designed a machine that does stress testing on these valves to see after how many flaps they fail. They then got sheep and placed the pig heart flaps inside during an operation which was very successful.

I never knew they made them out of other materials but will ask him about it, very interesting.

Wikipedia says the biological valves deteriorate after 10 years. That may be acceptable for a 60 year old patient, but not a 30 year old. Metal ones last longer. See link above.
 

Smokey mcpot

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Joined
May 28, 2019
Messages
1,572
My dad had this done some years ago. Had suffer around 16 heart attacks before passing just over a year ago.

Last OP he had was to fit some sort of monitor to the heart which would let us know when he is having a heart attack. Unfortunately he passed away shortly after having the OP. Strange that he was having a heart attack every month for the last 6 months of his life and even 2 heart attacks on 1 day (which is why we had this fitted). The he passed on and it was not a heart attack that killed him. The doctors even tracked his heart activity for the last 2 days of his life as everyone thought would be the cause of his death, but found nothing irregular. Technology really is amazing.
 
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