I was recently diagnosed with a thoracic aortic aneurysm, measuring 4.5 cm. For when I’m able to find online, there’s everything from put the horn down to you should be fine as long as you’re not professionally plan hours a day all day. Any real world experience out there you guys can contribute?

Hi. The rate for growth is something your doc will likely keep tabs on. Slow ones are easier to deal with and yours is less than 5.5cm so you ought to be able to play. Since I doubt you are playing for hours a day, all day every day, as long as you keep up with blood pressure meds it should be manageable. If it's slow growing and frequently monitored the medical pros will know if surgery is called for. I'd personally only lay off the horn if they told me I needed surgery next week.

It seem to me the real risk is not from.playing, but from normal day to day things that significantly raise blood pressure, like going to the bathroom or reading Facebook posts.

I've just kept playing. Aortic valve in '94. Few years later started enlarging. Has been very slow. At this point they would recommend surgery if I was 65. But at 78 it's much more of a crap shoot. So I'm runnin' what I brung until it don't. :pant:

Are you able to reverse some of the issue with diet? From what I've seen, it looks like going vegan might not reverse the physical damage but will soften up all the cardiac tissue and reduce the likelihood for future complications and reduce the worry about the stress playing the trombone might place on your heart.

My wife and I went "flexitarian" back in 2014 -- we cook vegan meals 90% of the time at home, 9% vegetarian meals (mostly either egg or cheese being the animal product used), and a few times a year we will add venison to our usual vegan chili. When I go out to eat, which is only about twice a month, I'll get fish sometimes, or pork if we get Mexican food. We get a vegetarian pizza every couple weeks too.

This diet brought my blood pressure down very quickly to the 115/70 range, and when I do physical activity it isn't my breathing that ever slows me down, it's just my muscles eventually burning out and going "I'm tired please stop", which happens long after I would have gotten out of breath before. So a definite boost in endurance.

I'm not trying to push some kind of moral thing on anybody, but this kind of 90/9/1 setup is actually really easy to adapt to, really easy on the old wallet, and really helps me feel a lot better overall health wise. Beans + rice + tofu + nuts + pea protein shake ("Raw" brand, chocolate peanut butter, is really good and has like 7 ingredients!) gives you more protein than your body will know what to do with, if that's a concern. The whole "incomplete protein unless from beef" argument is a total lie. Or, at least, it has taken me longer than 12 years to die of protein deficiency from not eating meat more than twice a month or so.

Again, not trying to push some kind of agenda. "Flexitarian" is usually a complete joke and people just trying to delude themselves. I'm aware of this, but we do follow our self-imposed 90/9/1 ratio at home to a T. It really helped my heart health, measurably. Just trying to give a different idea!

[quote="vetsurginc"]At this point they would recommend surgery if I was 65. But at 78 it's much more of a crap shoot.[/quote]
Just curious about this ...

Have you had any discussion about the "minimally invasive" endovascular approach -- which now appears to be the predominant method used in place of open surgery. Success rate appears to be around 98% in hospitals specializing in the endovascular approach (again, depending on patient selection criteria).

Discussion and review with Dr. Joseph Lamelas who developed many of the minimally invasive techniques used today. My case would require a full sternal split like I had for the valve. With the current state of my hearts health, he concurred with my choice of do nothing.

[quote="vetsurginc"]My case would require a full sternal split like I had for the valve. With the current state of my hearts health, he concurred with my choice of do nothing.[/quote]
Yeah, I'd go that way too.