I need a little help from my HealthUnlocked friends. I'm 5 weeks post CABGx3 and still experiencing both a lot of breathlessness and intermittent coughing. When I try to breath too deeply I begin to cough ... very uncomfortable.
What is your experience of recovering from breathlessness?
What breathing exercises do you do and how often?
How long before coughing resolves?
Thank you my friends. I love HealthUnlocked ... your stories normalize my experience so much! In gratitude, ~ Chuck
Oh - one more thing. I am walking daily - up to about 40 min and having not too much trouble. Flats and downhill are easy. I have to breath a lot going up hill and the muscles in my legs have a lot of strengthening to do. My target heart rate is 110.
Hi chuck, I am 17 weeks post cabg x4,back at at work light(ish) duties. I found that the breathlessness started to become less of a issue week 7 or 8 it sort of crept up on me, one day I just realised that I wasn't having so much, the thing that actually brought it to my attention, was one nite when I went upstairs and suddenly was out of breath.
I realised that it was the first time that day.
The coughing also passes in a similar way (at least for me, we all have different paths) until it does keep your cushion close.
5 weeks is early in the process, just keep on going, excersise is your friend, just remember pace yourself and you are going to get better.
However on the brighter side you haven't mentioned sneezing.
It all a matter of time, at 5 weeks I was scared that I might have to find a new trade, on Friday I was moving bags of cement.
Give yourself time.
Keep on fighting mate, you will win in the end.
Dear Rogo,
I can’t thank you enough! Yes, I get discouraged because my body has always worked so well I guess a bit afraid too wondering if something is dreadfully wrong.
Your note is super helpful! Exactly what I needed. I don’t often lift cement bags but look forward again to lifting feed bags for my chickens 🙏
Another point of contact, we have chickens as well. Be really careful about bio security until that scar has passed 6 or 7 weeks, but yes a bag of chicken feed was a definite high point.
We all have the worries about the little twinges, because we are suddenly aware of the potential problems.
But Give it a little time and you will be feeding the chickens again.
You will find lots of these little victory's as you go along.
And suddenly you start to feel good again.
It's coming just Give yourself the time.
In the end its all about time.
Morning Chuckness,
You should have been given breathing exercises by the physios after your surgery. I called them huffing and puffing one physio said pretend your breathing out on a mirror so it’s a sort of huffing noise 😂 these carry on doing now your home they really do help. Remember your lungs are collapsed when we are on bypass and getting all those little pockets need a bit of help to get filled up again. Doing our walking every day helps to. You ask about how often the breathing exercises in hospital it was every hour when I got home tried to do them a couple times in a morning and again in the afternoon.
As for coughing we are given a huge dose of anesthetiser and some very exotic drugs we need it to completely leave our system and it does take longer than we think it should.
You will get there, I am 5 years on from Aortic valve replaced and bypass and life is good there isn’t a day that I don’t thank the clever medical team that gave me my life back.
Best wishes Pauline
Hmmm … looks like I deleted my reply; if not, excuse my repetition…
Pauline, thank you so much! I didn’t get good instructions from my hospital. I will up my game of huffing and puffing . It really helps to understand how I need to rebuild the smallest parts of my lungs!
Congratulations for being 5-years out! That’s a huge encouragement for me!
In gratitude- Chuck
Hello
I am 7 weeks post CABG x4 and would agree with other replies that it gets easier over time and patience and calmness is key.
It took me approx 5 weeks to cough comfortably and also sneeze. I breathe deeply while walking an hour a day and several times a day take exaggerated deep breaths to exercise the lungs.
Everything gets easier as time passes.
Stay blessed
Thank you so much, Nimble
I really appreciate your experience and your encouragement!!!!
~ Chuck
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