Posted 3/7/2011 5:38 PM (GMT 0)
Hi everyone! A little background on me: I'm a 41 year old male, who has had two aortic valve replacements. The first was porcine at 29, and the last one was just over two years ago, which is mechanical. This was followed by an ablation for heart fluttering.
At the beginning of February I started to have some wild palpitations, which I contributed to taking too many supplements, so I cut them out. I also decreased my caffeine and alcohol intake. Everything seemed to smooth out until about two weeks ago. That's when I started to have some pain in the middle of my chest. This scared me, as it's the same kind of pain I've had before having to have my AVR's. My wife can still hear the valve ticking, so I chalked it up to a bad fall I had, in which I thought I hurt my sternum. However the pain is still popping up when I exert myself, or eat too much food at dinner.
Has anyone else experienced something like this, that didn't turn out to be valve related? Could the return of fluttering or arrhythmia cause chest pain? I just have a sinking feeling that it's the valve and my 3rd AVR. Something that stresses me greatly.