I had open heart surgery 2 weeks ago to repair my mitral valve. All went pretty much exactly to plan, other than a few unwanted side effects to drugs! I’m so happy and relieved!
My question is: I keep getting pain on my left side around where my heart is. It feels like pulling/tugging (possibly stitches?) and I notice it the most in the action of getting out of bed and when I straighten up. It also doesn’t seem to be helped by painkillers. Can the heart actually hurt or do you think it’s more likely to be my ribs?
I’m also struggling to take deep enough breaths, are there any good exercises to be doing?
Also, what can I expect in the next few weeks? I feel like I need something to aim for as a point at which I’ll feel a bit more normal! I’m so happy it’s all done and has gone smoothly (so far!), but it’s also so frustrating not being able to do much.
Thank you so much in advance and sorry if I don’t reply to you, attention span of a fly at the moment! But any advice will be really appreciated.
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Orange4567
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Hi Orange, A few days after I had my CABGX4 the nurse was taking the last of my draining tubes out, and she started pulling but the tube was stuck. I felt the pain, and she stopped pulling and fetched an advanced nurse. She started pulling and again I felt pain, and she informed me that a surgeon needed to examine the cause. The surgeon who performed my CABG pulled on the tube and I winced with pain. He said that means the tube has been stitched to the muscle because if it had been the heart there would be no pain. He performed bedside surgery along with a colleague of his using a scalpel to cut open up the wound and cut the stitch. He pulled the tube out and sewed me up.
As for breathing my hospital gave me a MEDIFLO duo - a dual-use incentive spirometer and I was also told to do this-
Breathing Exercises:
• Sit up straight, keep your shoulders relaxed.
• Take a long slow deep breath in through your nose.
• Hold your breath for a count of 2 then slowly breathe out through your mouth.
Complete your breathing exercises 6-8 times a day.
It’s likely to be your ribs causing the pain, remember they’ve been cranked open and more pressure put on the left side as that’s where the heart is. It will take a while for them to recover. Make sure you don’t put too much pressure on your arms getting out of bed or a chair to start with. What painkillers are you on? If what you are taking isn’t helping the pain, contact your GP cos you may need something a bit stronger for a short while.
Are you getting any exercise. I went out for a walk each day (unless it was raining, in which case I walked around the house) and set myself little targets, like walking to the corner and back, walking round the block etc. Don’t overdo it and get over estimate how far you can get, remember you need to get back too!
You mention your attention span, that will improve over time, as will your memory. They are normal side effects of being under anaesthetic for a while and on a bypass machine. I found reading very difficult to start with as I couldn’t remember what I had just read. Try doing puzzles, I had a Puzzler Collection that I used as it gets your brain working but isn’t too strenuous. Make sure you rest too. I would say don’t have visitors stay for too long as that can be exhausting, but guess that isn’t an issue at the present time. However if you are on your own, do try to talk to family or friends regularly on the phone, or FaceTime etc, otherwise it’s very easy to feel isolated and get depressed.
Remember it’s early days so baby steps, things will improve just don’t rush it, your body needs time to heal. In a few weeks you’ll be wondering what the fuss was!
Thank you so much Wendy, you’ve given me lots of ideas I hadn’t thought of. I’m on Dihydrocodeine and it’s really good at getting rid of my pain other than this one! Trouble I have is I seem to be sensitive to most medication. Take care x
Feeling the odd pain is normal, I had Aortic valve replaced and bypass and used to get the feeling of someone pulling an Elastoplast off! You have had your chest cracked open, and I remember my surgeon saying the heart doesn’t like being handled!
2 weeks isn’t very long since your op, and feeling that your in a fog again is normal, your concentration will return remember you have had a large dose of anesthetiser.
You should have been given breathing exercises to do in hospital I called them huffing and puffing, these I carried on once I was home and they really helped again remember your lungs took a hit when you were on bypass so they need to get back to normal.
As someone as already said a daily walk is great for us. I used to count lamp posts and try and get to the next one the next time I was out😂
Don’t expect to much of yourself let your brain catch up with what your body as been through, at the moment it’s thinking what on earth as been happening. If your body says I'm tired don’t push it rest, I am 4 years post op and very grateful every day to the clever medical team who gave me my life back.
You will get back to normal life before you know it.
Hi orange, so sorry to hear about yiur pain , did you get to the root cause , I had the exact same procedure and within the same time frame , it turned out I had to be rushed back to hospital with pericarditis , and 1.4 litre of fluid had to drain from the sac around my heart come on so quickly , it was the pains and lack of breathe esp lying down that made me nervous , im now 11 day from the fluid release but my heart rate is now operating anything from 90 to 170 wen mobile , new meds are hopefully on track to reduce this , very alarming to find this a common problem after open heart surgery which no one explained b4 surgery, so hope you are fully fixed and getting on with life , fingers crossed im not long behind you
Hi Jammy dodger. I’m so sorry to hear that you had pericarditis, I was worried that that mine could be that, but luckily it gradually got better and fully disappeared at around 2 months post op. It is so alarming! Especially when you’re not pre-warned that it can happen. I had a very fast heartbeat after my surgery too, but mine gradually got better; it’s still not back to the rate it was before surgery, but I had quite a slow resting heart rate before, so that might be why. Fingers crossed you’re now fully on the road to recovery again!
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