Tim's Guestbook

Tim Zapf  Hello Harris,
I am just turning 50 this year and have had an On-X for 2 yrs. I was pretty young for a valve replacement, but you have me beat by 20 years! Sure, I am happy to discuss the experience with you.
My best.

Harris Chrysanthou  I had my OHS back in October 2019, I was 27 at the time. So far so good. I have some cases of arrhythmia from time to time but doctors say its from stress. How is everything going on your side?

Tim Zapf  I had OHS in January 2019 for both the valve and an aneurysm in the ascending aorta. The aneurysm developed over time of course and was caused by the defective valve. You may have saved yourself from a future aneurysm by having the valve replaced at 27!

I am curious, did you have arrhythmia before your OHS? I had it for maybe 5 years on and off again before the OHS and it turned into almost constant right after surgery. They were able to shock my heart back into rhythm (cardioversion) which was fantastic. I do also still have some arrhythmia from time to time now though. Mostly a racing heart with a pulse of about 100 that eventually goes back to normal. I think also stress, caffeine and maybe some dehydration brings it on for me.

Also I am curious if your cardiologist had recommended for you to wait until you needed the surgery or if they suggested you should have the OHS at the age that you did.

Other than occasional arrhythmia and a nice scar on my chest, I really don't have any negative effects to speak of. So far so good!

Harris Chrysanthou  I had OHS for both the valve and the aneurysm in the ascending aorta too.

I had no arrhythmia before surgery, at all. The first case of arrhythmia happend 3-4 months after surgery and the last time it happend (January 2021) it lasted for 2 weeks! It was crazy, no sleep at all. I also have some racing heart cases. This led me to drink much less coffee and stop smoking shisha.

Regarding the timing of the operation, I chose to have the surgery 3-4 years before I actually needed to.

At what levels do you keep your blood INR? What should we be careful of now that we are taking blood thinners?

Tim Zapf  Hi Marshall. I am required to test once a week on the home INR test program. The clinic testing was once a month or so, but since I travel for work the home test made more sense to me. If you stick with clinic testing then its just once a month.