As someone who was eating a relatively balanced diet, I recently had open heart surgery, not due to lifestyle choices, I was born with a bicuspid aortic valve that required surgery, which 80% of the people with my condition also have to undergo surgery.
During the lead up to the surgery, I found out my cholesterol and coronary arteries were all excellent, in addition while in the hospital, I was told my blood tests were all excellent and I was not pre-diabetic and showed no signs of becoming one.
Given all that, I am undergoing a complete evaluation of my current diet and trying to introduce even more things that lead to a healthier lifestyle.
I most recently spent 3 days hospitalized after a trip to the E.R.
6 cm Abscess on lower colon from diverticulitis.
Suspecting at times, overeating would allow partially digested foods to pass from stomach into intestines and wreck havoc downstream. Things like even raisins, not digested first, would get in a div— pocket and this one time, constipation allowed it to fester and get infected. Painful and dangerous.
On I.V. antibiotic for the three days.
They say the tissue will reabsorb the pus and infection.
At first they were talking surgery and an ostomy. Iick.
Still on mostly liquid diet.
I think the major risk of a bicuspid aortic valve is a thoracic aortic aneurysm with dissection. It is what killed John Ritter
Interesting. Me too in 2009. Was runner, ate well. Needed triple bypass and aortic valve replacement (took pig valve).
They said my artheroslerosis was congenital. As was the bicuspid aortic valve.
This Jan they told me my pig valve was shot after 15 years - it had done well. I had a new valve put in by TAVR in March (no pain or open heart surgery) so now I’m on pig valve #2 and aortic valve #3. One stent put in one blocked artery, others are fine.
Even with the blocked artery in Feb. I pushed my heart rate to 161 in stress test with the bad pig valve and no problems. That’s the maximum heart rate of a 59 year old man. Still have a runners heart tho I had to quit at 69 due to arthritis in knee caps.
So at 79 I’m proof of the grace of God - for sure.