E Mail after Echo cardiogram

[lisburb]

Morning all. Happy Easter. I had an echo cardiogram mid March. I had a mitral valve repair December 2017 and all went well. Consultants were really pleased with me and my progress. At my annual check up back in November 2020 (wich was conducted over the phone due to covid 19) my consultant (new one) old one retired a while ago, seemed concerned that I had not had any "proper follow ups" I asked what he meant and he said I should have had regular ecg's and echo cardiograms and other checks to make sure all was well with my repair. This put the fear of God into me and I contacted my GP practice afterwards, who did not seem too concerned. I received a copy yesterday of an e mail sent by my consultant to another, asking for his opinion on the results of my Echocardiogram. He said he was not overly concerned but had noticed there was a small amount of regurgitation and he wanted to know if this was "normal" for someone who had, had a repair done. I feel fine by the way, am fit and healthy and have just been offered a new job and filled in a health questionaire stating their is nothing wrong with me !! I just wanted to get it all out, as I cant ring anyone with it being Easter weekend.

[Midgeymoo17]

You should receive some form of long term monitoring by echocardiogram as repairs can fail-however, there is a tendency in modern medicine to over test. By this I mean I was diagnosed with a valve problem in 2004, did not need any intervention at all until 2017. In that time I believe we did 18 echocardiograms. Quite frankly 9 would have been enough to protect my health and decide when surgery was necessary. On this basis I have actually reduced the frequency of follow up to bi-annual scan and consultation and in Feb had first bi-annual Scan. Everything was fine Cardio happy that condition is stable for me to wait bit longer for consultant appointment.

Slightly off topic example but my Dad is a Radiologist at a Specialist Bone Cancer Unit and has started to complain about people who previously had cancer over 10 years ago still receiving annual scan to check come backs. In this case the scans actually involve radiation so after ten years realistically all these annual check ups are doing is increasing their lifetime chance of developing other cancers. The only real benefit of the scans is patient reassurance.

By the way- mild regurgitation is often considered a normal finding.

[lisburb in reply to Midgeymoo17]

Hi Happy Easter and thank you for replying. Just had a chat with a pal who is a cardiac nurse and she is a little cross that I have received the e mail. Yes she says, they need to keep you in the loop, but no, they should wait, until they have something more concrete to tell you. I just feel I have been a little forgotten, as others, I know, have had more check ups than I have, for similar conditions. My consultant told me after my op, the repair should out last you, and I was made aware that they can fail over a period of time. I shall just wait and see when they reply.