CABG Recovery

[Andytriumph63]

10 days post op and am suffering from a high level.of leg pain that means i can only sleep in a chair. My leg was a secondary harvest site and the wound itself is healing well. This is severly effecting my recovery as walking is very painful .Also suffering from swelling of angles and lower legs.Is all of this normal expectect better recovery by now!

[Chappychap]

Andy, everyone's recovery is different, but there are no shortage of people who say their leg wound was more difficult than their chest wound.

It is however very important that you get with the walking programme, by ten days post op it would be good if you were not only walking every day, but also adding a minute or so to the length of each day's walk.

I only had moderate discomfort from my leg wound, but I did find even that tended to reduce after exercise. In other words exercise itself acted to reduce the discomfort, so maybe you'll find that pushing through actually eases things and works as a kind of gentle stretching exercise for the scar.

[Andytriumph63]

Thanks for the reply i am walking but feel i should be doing more..Going out for short Dog walk( my wife holding the dog) was very hard work but i managed to cover around 20 mins.

[Chappychap in reply to Andytriumph63]

A twenty minute walk ten days post op is pretty good going! The objective I was given by the hospital was to be up to 30 minutes of daily brisk walking after six weeks.

Keep it up Andy, sounds like you're doing great!

[skid112 Heart Star]

Hi Andy, yes you are doing very well, try and elevate the leg post exercise as well that may help and keep the compression socks on during the day

[Mobbit]

Elevate that leg and keep those stockings on like they told you to 😊 Your nerves are currently doing the equivalent of 'jazz hands' because not only did you just essentially get a massive paper cut (really OW), someone went in a stole a bit. Mine took a while to settle down, and 4 years later in still noticing nerve changes (good ones). However, if the pain is getting worse do raise it with your medical support team.

[shopman]

I remember when mine was done I had difficulty bending my knee until they realised some of the stitching was too tight. Once I had a few cut then it soon settled down but everyone is different.