What is Congenital Heart Disease

Congenital heart disease is heart disease in the newborn, and includes congenital heart defects, congenital arrythmias, cardiomyopathies, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Con...

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Advice:
mechancial or bio valve for 13 yr daughter??
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My daughter needs to have left valve replaced-due to position of her heart it has to be done "open heart". If they place a mechancial valve we have the issue of dealing with Coumadin levels her whole like... thru her teen years -while menestrating? how does that effect coumadin levels? and such... if we go with a bio or "pig" valve, only short term blood thinner then nothing else, EXCEPT it only last up to 15 years, so we would be looking at another open heart.????? Any experience here that could give some advice??
Posted on 11/18/07, 04:11 am
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Reply #1 - 11/20/07  12:39pm
" I had open heart for Atrial Septum Defect and two valve repairs at age 12, my mitral valve was a cleft valve. I have to have the mitral valve replaced soon with a mechanical one and have been on blood thinners for years due to clots. My normal INR (test for blood thinner levels) is 1.2-1.6. My target is 2.4 to 2.8 which I hold pretty well. As for bleeding more the difference between no blood thinner and on blood thinners has been minimal.
The blood thinner levels must be weekly tested or internal bleeding my occure. I can not help you with your daughters cycle, please ask your cardioligist for accurate info about this as every ones blood thinner levels are adjusted to the persons specific need. There is a Doctor Orange thats a advisor to the community. If you do a people search you should be able to find her to send a message to. Be patient for a responce and keep checking your post and messages for a reply from her. "

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