Tom 's Guestbook

Hi Tom,
Really sorry to hear that . Get in touch with your g p to get reviewed or your cardiologist . If you are unwell overnight phone the out of house number or attend a&e .  Are you taking your analgesics ? Have you checked your medication / what the side affects are ? Are you ? allergic to something that you are using that is in contact with your skin ? Washing powder ? Dressings ? 

Hi Tom, 
I'm in Ireland myself and today I'm marking one year since aortic valve replacement. I had my surgery in Mater Private and although I didn't have minimally invasive surgery, my incision is very small unlike other patients with the same issue. Recovery was fairly swift. Type of surgery is down to surgeon's preferred approach so I reckon it's very important to research before you choose your surgeon. My surgeon was prof. Lars Nolke and couldn't have had better care. 
Best of luck and hope everything goes smoothly!

Dear Tom, as Deena said, the most important thing about repair is your surgeon's experience. Approach is less important. It is open heart surgery and it sucks eather way haha. 
 Studies showed more than 25 repairs per year per surgeon is associated with better outcome. With reapir it is all about experience and skill. You want the best surgeon. If he/she does it via sternotomy, that's less important as long as he knows how to reapir a valve and does it on a week basis... 
It was hard for me to find this data for a particular surgeon. Some surgeons have big ego so I had to do my own research... Prof. Michael Borger from Leipzig Heart centre is the one for me, ticks all the boxes. Europan and american official medical recommendations say mitral valve repair should be done in experienced centre. (such as Leipzig for example). My prolaps is quite complex (morbus Barlow, prolaps of anterior, posterior leaflet and comissural prolaps with flail elongated and redundand leaflets and broken chorda) so another reason why I wanted the best of the best. If I needed mitral valve replacement I would definitely do it in Croatia (for free) since it is not as nearly complex and doesn't require such skill... 

Prof Borger does repair via mini thoracotomy since 1990-ties...and that's approach done in Leipzig daily, that's just the way they do it there. But if it were via sternotomy - fine by me! As long as yearly numbers and skill is there... I hope I helped and I hope you find the best solution for your situation :)