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Diagnosis: Mitral Regurgitation

Member Since: April 25, 2026

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Chris Freyer posted an update

2 weeks ago (April 25, 2026)

I am scheduled to have robotic mitral valve repair on May 15. I was diagnosed with MVP about ~30 years ago and have remained active in my adult life (scouting, biking, hiking, etc). My cardiologist says that now is the time to get the repair done because my ejection fraction... Read more.

Richard Munson

Good to do research. Noticed you never mentioned maze procedure while in there

Chris Freyer

Richard, I don't have AFib so that never came up. I didn't know about the maze procedure until I read about it here on the HVS website.

J Alexander Lassally

Shorter but no free lunch! One of the fallacies of current medicine / surgical marketing is the idea that the robot is "surgery" without surgery. It is still extreme and there are testimonials to patients who underestimated the impacts and recovery. Many post surgery issues are the same regardless of... Read more.

Richard Munson

The good thing about the robot is they got all aâ€™s in medical school.

Fidel Martãnez Ruiz

He is a valedictorian made of steel and wires 😉

Fidel Martãnez Ruiz

I think IÂ´ve become outdated, I am afraid of robotic surgery and still would prefer by surgery hands, perhaps itÂ´s my own lack of knowledge. Anyway, the important is the surgeon skill behind the robot.

Richard Munson

I believe the surgeon is still guiding the robot. Not to compare the 2 but welds on automobile mfg. are way more precise than human welds. At least i am led to believe.

Thomas Brusstar

Great work, Chris. I like having enough information that the nurses and doctors realize they don't have to "talk down" to me. I knew I'd done well when a doctor asked me what kind of medical background I had (I don't have one). My mitral valve repair was by sternotomy in 2018 (my surgeon, Dr. McCarthy in Chicago, said he preferred it over robotic for my heart and to preserve options during surgery). I had a couple chordae that had snapped, making my valve "flail" -- which makes it kind of a big leaky mess in there. But the broken chordae were attached to the leaflet where they were cutting that one out anyhow, so they did not add any synthetic chordae. They just removed tissue and tightened the whole thing up. (And they added the metal annular ring around the base, too.) I had an echo last week, just for a checkup. My cardiologist confirms the repaired valve is not leaking at all after 8 years, so that's good! Other valves have some leakage (not a concern), but the mitral one is still great. My left atrium was grossly enlarged (4x) before surgery, but it was much smaller (2x) right after the valve repair (like by the time I left the operating table), and has continued to move back toward normal over the years. Last week's measurement doesn't even call it enlarged any more. I will note that ejection fraction is a deceiving number in mitral valve prolapse. EF measures how much of the left ventricle gets ejected in each beat, but it does measure which direction it goes. My EF before surgery was fine, but we know that way too much of it was going backwards as that mitral valve prolapse "backwash." That enlarged my left atrium (not built to withstand the big pressure of the left ventricle pushing back into it), and caused pulmonary hypertension as the blood backed up into my lungs (hard to measure if you're not actually up in there with a catheter). That is all a reason to do the surgery before it gets worse, and while you're still otherwise a healthy patient. You're doing this correctly. You'll do great!