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SALT LAKE CITY -- Though his sense of humor never fails, KSL-TV political reporter Richard Piatt knew his heart was showing early signs of failure.
Using catheterization lab imaging, cardiologist Brent Muhlstein of Intermountain Medical Center confirmed what doctors believed to be a heart murmur.
Doctors told Richard that he had a prolapse of his mitral valve, which caused the value to leak.
"That's the prolapse of your mitral valve and it is prolapsing as much as I've ever seen," said Dr. Muhlstein.
Richard had a big heart, which was a bad sign; a sign of an enlarged, overworked pump, burning itself out.
It's like baking cookies. If you're baking cookies and smell the cookies baking, chances are they're burning by that time.
–Richard Piatt
The subtle cues, Richard said, had surfaced months before the exam. "I was starting to feel short of breath when I was exercising, and I could never figure out whether I needed to work harder in getting back into shape, or if there was really something more to it."
On January 19, Richard went into surgery at Intermountain Medical Center to remove the old valves. Instead of a clear, translucent piece of tissue, it was thick and glossy.
As Dr. John Doty of Intermountain Medical Center described, the stringy cords no longer sealed the valve: "The valve becomes redundant and begins to leak more -- prolapse more. So [they] are almost like worn out bungee cords. They won't support the valve and close it."
In a routine surgery, doctors inserted a new pig-tissue valve, mounted in a little prosthetic frame called a stent.
- Is the most common heart valve abnormality
- Most patients have no symptoms and require no treatment
- Can be associated with fatigue and/or palpitations
- Can often be detected by a doctor during examination of the heart with an echocardiogram
- Patients are usually given antibiotics prior to any procedure which might introduce bacteria into the bloodstream, including dental work and minor surgery
Courtesy of www.medicinenet.com
By day five, Richard was on his feet, healing nicely.
Muhlstein reviewed old valve images, which showed the blood flow leaking backward to the bottom of the left atrium. But in recent ultrasounds, there is no back flow.
"The blood is going through the mitral valve up here, but there is none of that blue colored blood going backwards. So you're not leaking at all," described Dr. Muhlstein.
Although heart valves are replaced frequently in thousands of patients, Richard believes there is a lesson to be learned -- Don't put it off!
"It's like baking cookies," Richard said. "If you're baking cookies and smell the cookies baking, chances are they're burning by that time."
While many believe that their heart condition is not critical enough to warrant early surgery, Dr. Doty believes it is a prime example of preventative medicine.
"You catch it before someone gets sick," he said. "It's safe. It works well and [you] can get back on to [your] usual stuff."
In many cases, Dr. Doty said that an individual can return to a normal life expectancy.
"The consequence of not dealing with it and what could have happened had I not handled it at this point would have been even more catastrophic," Richard said.
Do nothing and lose it all; act early and recover quickly and gain everything.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
