I missed this when I did my multiquote, please consult your primary care physician as I'm not qualified to answer this question. It is my opinion that you need an MRI and possibly a catscan just in case.

This thread is not about you fwiw.

Did the doctor tell you stay away from too much blood-thinning stuff? I'm asking because you're talking about still drinking booze, and booze can do that from what I understand. Also of course, things like fish oil and olive oil are highly recommended healthwise for people without your problem, but maybe for people like you ....

I'm not meaning to advise you in any way and am no doctor for sure, but am just curious about whether the doctor thought about things like this and mentioned them.

Will you need a **** bag, like Yarbles?

hmmm, all this stuff about eating right and exercising, me things the real deal is when the surgery is gonna get done so have the best doc in the country imo also best of luck wish i was there to see ur heart

To my recollection, he has not mentioned avoiding other blood-thinning items. I did point out he said that drinking a lot would be bad, but I think this is mainly due to the poor choices young people make when they get a lot of booze in them and obviously repeated alcohol abuse can't be good for the rest of my body.

I try to eat as healthy as possible and use olive oil several times per week. I didn't really know of the health benefits until just recently, I just know it tastes good. I don't know anything about fish oil, but I will check it out and ask next time I see my cardiologist. FWIW I am currently on medication for high cholesterol and high triglycerides because I got some tests done at the beginning of the school year and I was in the highest risk category for both. I'm 5'10" and weigh about 185-190lbs, so I'm not obese or anything, but my cholesterol indicates that I was leading a very unhealthy lifestyle at the time. I am planning on having my blood tested again very soon to see what risk level I am at after I have exercised and taken medication on a daily basis all school year.

My digestive system works fine.

Before you have the surgery PM me your login and password info on the sites you play on and your banking logins. I will email your family the info if anything goes wrong. Or if I don't do that you can rest easy knowing stars or ftp won't get to keep it cause I will. Okthxs. :]

Thanks, I have no worries about the 4% mortality rate. Sure it could happen, but as a poker player its like meh. Also I would love to have the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the the world, but I'm pretty poor and my insurance is pretty limited and IDK how all that stuff works out. In fact I'm not even sure if my insurance would cover surgery as it is a preexisting condition.

I already have a plan for this, sorry but your were too slow.

The MD probably did not mention these things because they're not in any way relevant here.

OP, you're anticoagulant will take some effort to manage but you sound like you take good care of yourself and actually care. Also, I'm gonna point out because you go to a Big Ten school that the W in warfarin (the anticoag you'll be on) stands for Wisconsin. UW invented that drug. Go Bucky

Where were you when I was learning about this stuff for school!?!?!?

Ya I don't want to get warfarin induced skin necrosis, I watch too much Housem MD lol. That is cool that it was developed by a B10 school, too bad I hate all the other schools besides mine! You sound like you know a little bit about medicine, what do you do?

Not sure when that was, but I was probably around here somewhere, probably the uNL forum and not browsing 4L. Thanks, I appreciate your support

I sell drugs.

(aka I'm a pharmacist)

sooo, how did you find out you had this condition??

uh oh someones chest has been hurting

Ya I guess you might have some knowledge of medication haha

So like I said earlier I played a bunch of sports all throughout my life and never had much of a problem I just thought I failed hard at endurance type fitness. I played baseball the first three years of high school on the varsity team and played football since my sophomore year. It is my senior year and we have a game on Friday against our biggest rivals that also happens to be my birthday. I realized that it was on my birthday before the season even started so I was really pumped up for this game.

It is Monday of this week and we always have light practices on Mondays that were just shorts, shirt, and helmet. No contact at all and usually it is a very easy practice of just going through the mistakes that were made the prior week and maybe learning a couple new plays to drop on our biggest rival. It is the standard for all of our practices to end with some wind sprints and usually Monday's aren't as bad since we don't have the extra weight and pads. Well this Monday the coaches decided to make us run a ton of wind sprints.. I mean probably twice the normal amount we ever have. I remember getting part of the way through it then all of a sudden I am seeing stars and I am told that I grab my back and complain that it hurts, please note that I have never had a problem with my back before, so it looks like I'm just being a pussy about running all these sprints. Anyways I walk off from where we are doing sprints and lay down on my back just staring straight up. The next thing I remember is being told by my buddy that practice is over and it is time to go, this means that practice was over and everyone had already changed out of their practice clothes and was done in the locker room. (I always gave this friend a ride home from practice since we lived close to each other.) I tell him I don't know what is going on and don't remember what has happened for the last however long I was laying there. He walks me to our trainer and I can barely put a sentence together to explain what is going on and she says I need to go to the hospital. From the point where I complain about my back hurting to getting home, I don't remember a single thing and am only telling you what I was told about the situation.

So my friend drives me home (I was still out of it) so I can go to the hospital with my parents and get a bunch of tests done. These tests were inconclusive so they referred me to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. They did an echocardiogram and discovered my bicuspid aortic valve and I consulted with my pediatric cardiologist and he stated that I wouldn't be allowed to play sports anymore in high school. I was devastated by this news because up to this point sports were what I enjoyed most about life.

I think that pretty well covers that question... I type too much.

is there any chance you can cash in on this situation?

I am not from a well off family and when I was diagnosed with BAV the University of Illinois @ Chicago contacted my family with an interesting offer. Their proposal was to use me as a subject for an ongoing study on congenital heart defects. In return, they paid all of my medical bills that my parents insurance didn't cover. They even gave us per diem for meals and paid for gas to travel from my hometown to Indianapolis (2.5-3 hours). This was an offer that was good only while I was under 21. Now I am 24 years old I am not on my parent's insurance and I am ****ed, the only health insurance I have is offered by the University I attend. When I went to the hospital in the fall for some testing I later found out that my insurance would not cover a single red cent since my BAV was a preexisting condition. I have done some research on the cost of aortic valve replacement surgery and the lowest cost is more than I have made in any single year. So if anyone knows of any studies going on that are interested in finding a study subject or know of any options that I might be able to use, please PM me.

damn that sux

Can you start turning tricks?

It'll get paid for one way or another. Write a Congressman.

What, exactly, will they do to you during surgery? Are they just going to cut the two fused-together valves apart or what?

hahah nice. I enjoy me some R. Kelly.

Hmm, I will set up an erotic services post on craigslist and let you know how it goes. There aren't many corners I can work on

Good idea, I wonder if I can use one of those PPA letters and kill two birds with one stone.

No, there are two options available for me as far as the surgical procedure goes. My aortic valve will need to be replaced by either a mechanical or tissue valve. The tissue valve lasts only about 10-15 years, but isn't very good for younger people because they get wore out quicker due to the increased activity in young folks. So I will be getting a mechanical valve that is actually designed to outlast me. So when I'm dead and just skeleton, my heart valve will still be there.

The actual procedure goes like this. They saw my sternum down the middle then open up my chest. Once they do this they open up the pericardium, which is basically a sack that holds your heart there. Then they put me on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine which will circulate the blood and oxygen through my body since I won't be able to do it. They then cut out the aortic valve and replace it with a mechanical valve. Then hopefully all the kings horses and all the kings men can put fredd-bird back together again. Typical hospital stay is a couple weeks with no complications and post-op care I discussed earlier with the restrictions.

Wrong. People often get told not to take anti-coagulants before surgery.

If you read around boards frequented by laymen much, including this site's health and fitness forum, you will see that it has become very popular to recommend the use of numerous anti-coagulants at the same time, such as the two I mentioned specifically: fish oil and olive oil.

Considering that OP is talking about likely taking prescription anti-coagulants for life in the first place, whether he takes other anti-coagulants as well is about as far from in no way relevant as possible. It is certainly possible to take too many anti-coagulants!

Blarg,

I didn't think about this before, but I am currently on a once-a-day regimen of baby aspirin.

Good to keep those things in mind I'm sure. I had the stray thought earlier that you might be using aspirin to help with hangovers from your drinking and it didn't even occur to me for some reason that many people take aspirin for their heart/circulatory system. Either way, I was thinking it's quite possible for someone to be taking aspirin, fish oil, and extra helpings of olive oil all at once before they even get to a prescription anti-coagulant, and without being a totally crazed vitamin nut or anything. That's not even counting other oils or nutrients with similar effects.

Anyway, thinking of the spillover effects of all the things you're consuming is certainly worth thinking about. If it were me, I would ask the doctor what he thought about where I should draw the line.

omg, 60 minutes story.

"Fredd-bird needs open-heart surgery. Unfortunately, his insurance does not cover the $50,000 procedure and Fredd-bird has no way to pay. So, he makes money the only way he can; by playing online poker. 'I just wanna fix my heart {cough, cough}' a weakening Fredd-bird says.

But if Think Of The Children founder Roger Ehoal has his way online poker would be illegal. 'What Fredd-bird is doing is wrong' says Ehoal, 'he's taking advantage of people like jayteeme who get drunk and play an overpair like it's the nuts.' In fact, the US government currently does not allow financial institutions to transfer money to online gambling sites, including poker sites, putting one young man's heart surgery further out or reach. I'm Leslie Stahl."