"Sport is my life," says 66-year-old Hans-Joachim Bartz, an amateur triathlete and retiree. As a young man, he played handball. Later, when his knees no longer wanted to, he took up triathlon. His favourite discipline is the Olympic distance: 1.5 kilometres swimming, 40 kilometres on the bike and 10 kilometres running. Other people go limp just thinking about it, but Bartz is the type of endurance athlete who gets nervous if he has to take an unplanned break for a day. His training was correspondingly extensive: around eight hours of road cycling per week before competitions, plus three hours of swimming and three hours of running - with relatively high intensities, i.e. many cycling units in the mountains and short, fast units on the flat.
Until he found himself short of breath more and more often. "It started gradually," says the well-trained man, describing his symptoms: "I had problems keeping up in training, I found it harder and harder to breathe and was able to perform less and less." He did manage to keep up his usual amount of training and only fared slightly worse in competitions. "That was probably due to the adrenaline. But training became a struggle," says Bratz. He thought it was due to his age.
However, a trained theatre nurse from his triathlon group urged him to see a doctor: "Something's wrong," she said after a training run. "It was a beautiful summer's day in June 2018," recalls the former media consultant, "the usual twelve-kilometre run. But I couldn't go on after just a few metres."
"My wife immediately made an appointment with our family doctor, I would have just put it off," admits Bartz. Then everything happened very quickly: referral to a cardiologist, cardiac ultrasound, clear findings, immediate ban on sport - and referral to the heart centre: "Cycling, any sport at all, was taboo from that day on, I wasn't even allowed on the ergometer because it was too dangerous," he explains.
Info:
Aortic valve stenosisA calcified aortic valve is the most common acquired heart valve disease in Western countries - it usually leads to shortness of breath, loss of performance, later also dizziness or unconsciousness, and in advanced stages often to swelling of the ankles and lower legs.
TreatmentA defective aortic valve can be replaced. The operation takes a good 110 minutes. After around eight weeks, the sternum, which had to be partially opened, is stable again and the patient can bear full weight.
Mitral valve insufficiencyMitral valve insufficiency, i.e. leakage of the leaflet valve between the left atrium and left ventricle of the heart, is another heart valve defect that particularly often affects athletes under the age of 60. The mitral valve usually becomes leaky when its retaining apparatus ruptures. "Many patients don't notice this until their heart function deteriorates. Here, too, athletes realise much earlier that something is wrong."
TreatmentA leaky mitral valve can usually be repaired with a minimally invasive procedure: "In over 90 per cent of cases, we can preserve the patient's own valve," says Prof Dr Stefan Bauer. An operation is recommended in any case, even if no symptoms are noticeable yet: "Heart function will definitely deteriorate with a defective mitral valve."
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Hans-Joachim Bartz did everything right and went to the doctor early. After a successful operation, a long recovery period and the mental support of his wife, he is now able to train fully again. He is under regular medical supervision. In his opinion, road cycling is the ideal sport to get back into: "The exertion is much less than running and swimming, which benefits my fitness - and I enjoy it the most."
After his cautious start, Bartz is now even back to the kilometre figures from before his heart disease, and almost two years after his heart valve operation, he draws a positive conclusion: "Because I no longer have any problems, I can approach everything a little more calmly. And I think that has improved my performance." What is obvious is that almost exactly one year after the operation, he was back in top shape, right on schedule. He won the triathlon in Hamburg as first in his age group. In his personal best time. "I'm doing really well!" says Bartz, grinning with satisfaction. He has every reason to be.
