Monday, August 4, 2014

Background noise

Today was amazingly one of my longer appointments. Almost 4 hours.

We saw Dr Ringel twice. After the first time when all seemed well, he heard a murmur through the stethoscope that he heard just after the Melody valve insertion a few weeks back.  At the time he had written off the sound as coming from the leaking tricuspid valve, but now that the leak is gone, he wanted an explanation. A second echocardiogram was needed.

The murmur, it turns out, is coming from my Aortic valve. It is not a cause for immediate concern. In fact it is likely this murmur has been there for some time (after my surgery in 2008), but was masked by the big sounds of the pulmonary craziness.

We will watch this over time. The question, less important than the sound made, is the valve's performance. The valve has been categorized as mildy insufficient (leaky) since it was replaced , and may have slipped into the early stages of moderate. Time will tell.

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