ASD Closure - Percautaneous - Should I do it??

Hi everyone,
it was so good to read everyones info as I am at a real cross roads with this. I am a 34yr old female, fairly young and active. I started to experience shortness of breath approx 6 months ago and after several respiratory tests (all negative) they performed an echo gram and realised that I had an 1.2cm hole that was allowing 50% more blood to pass into my right Atrium.. The right side of my heart looks slightly enlarged in the scans.
After the consultation my doctor suggested that I should consider wether it is worth clsoing it or not as they are not in favour of putting a foreign object into my heart at such a young age, he felt that I need to weigh up whether or not I feel that this "non life threatening" situation is worth treating.. Of course there will be stress in later life bit for now it seems not too bad - just slightly stressed. As I am no doctor and do not understand any possibilities, I am torn. I dont want to need this procedure later in life, however I do not want to close it if it is not necessary.. Does anyone know what effects a 1.2cm hole which is causing the right side to receive 50% more blood than normal could have on my body?

Thanks,
Kerry

Hi Kerry,

I was 27 when I was diagnosed with an 18mm ASD which was a HUGE SURPRISE since I had been a pretty serious athlete for my entire life ( i'm 33 now). Anyway, I didn't have a choice about whether to close it or not because of the size and because of the size that my heart enlarged to. My doctor and I discussed options including the implatzer (sp?) device for closing it. I actually chose open heart surgery because I didn't feel like the device had been around long enough for me to feel comfortable making that decision. I think in europe they had only been using it for about 10 years and here perhaps 5? The data is pretty solid-- the data they have. There was very little risk involved in the device but what happens in 20, 30, 40 years? They just don't have that data yet. My rational for having open heart surgery was just that they have been doing it since the 1960s and that if they went in and manually sewed the thing shut, I would never have to think about it ever again. With the device, I would always be wondering if it would be ok or not. That is mostly about me and my personality as a worry wart. At the end of the day, if you are going to spend the rest of your life worrying and being concerned and psyching yourself out, just get it fixed. If you are not that type of person, it sounds like they could just monitor it closely and fix it when needed.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
Heather