Straight after the surgery I felt fine and could hold a conversation with people. The week after (once home) I felt I was present in the room but struggled to communicate.
I would have the conversation mapped out in my head along with what I wanted to say but it didn’t happen, instead I felt like I was talking but not making any sense.
I felt better within myself few weeks afterwards but I have now gone back to work full time and today I couldn’t understand how to do a simple task.
Has anyone else experienced this?
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AH31
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Sorry to hear this. Not quite the same but I have experienced terrible brain fog since I’ve been taking Warfarin. Not sure if you’re on that too? If I’m in the middle of speaking and someone interrupts my sentence mid-flow - it’s just gone. I can then struggle to recall what it was I was saying. It’s so frustrating and can be embarrassing (especially with strangers or if you’re on the phone for example). I certainly wasn’t like this prior to my surgery.
I would mention your issue to your Cardiologist when you next see them or Cardiac Rehab Nurse. They can contact the Consultant on your behalf, if need be. Hope you get some answers.
I hope you are feeling better now..
Short answer.. any major surgery on the life pump will use all your resources during recovery.. especially the mitochondria… 10,000 in each heart cell (myocyte) but more importantly 120,000 mitochondria in each brain cell.. so the body would divert all repair nutrients to the area it’s trying to mend…hence the brain fog…
hello when I came out of having my surgery done this year I was exactly the same, once I got home and people were coming round to visit I couldn’t get my words out that I wanted to say even though I had them in my head. Even now I’m still like that.
You feel so frustrated with your self but I just joke about it to family and friends now because they know but with strangers it’s a bit different, and with tasks you feel like your mind just goes completely blank but that’s something you get used to in time.
I returned back to work yesterday and felt completely lost haha everything is a slow process after having it done. I try and laugh about it now and try to not get myself too stressed out about it
I hope you are ok too, you are right it’s best to laugh at it and I can with family and friends but when I’m at work it’s embarrassing but I will try and push through it.
I thought it was just me and I was going mad but I can only put it down to the operation.
I had something similar, a blood test indicated a vitamin D deficiency. I was prescribed a course of high strength capsules, seems to have worked - feel more like my old self and concentration is a lot better at work.
I found that about an hour after taking Losartan and Atorvastatin in the evening brain fog starts, but it seems to get better during the day, I think it’s a side effect, apparently some of the Covid meds also cause brain fog, I would take notice if your brain fog comes and go’s if it does then I’d put it down to the meds, I seem to get many of the side effects mentioned on the long list inside the packets. The trouble is any ache, pain or memory problem gets you worried, I find that any ache in the heart area starts panic, but it’s probably nothing to do with it, just the usual aches.
This sounds silly to say but can you think of some "coping strategies"? What I mean is could you do something like tell the work people you are closest to that recovering from heart surgery is a much more uneven business than you had thought it would be and that although you are glad to be back at work you need a bit of extra help. If they see you struggling with a simple task or notice you look exhausted could they... come and help you out or take over and find you somewhere to sit quietly for a while, get you a drink etc. Accept that this is going to happen and try and work out the best way for those around you to help... Might be impossible.
This is not unusual for us hearties! All our settings seem to tend towards zero and it is a conscious battle to regain familiar grounds! All the new meds and operations etc do it to us!This is the new challenge for us to survive.
One thing I would not do is head off to the GP surgery, because in my experience GP’s tend to go for the simplest diagnosis, for instance, I had a severe skin reaction to Ramipril which my GP diagnosed as dermatitis and prescribed two huge tubes of hydrocortisone, which the pharmacist told me to use sparingly, I stopped taking the Ramipril, I don’t have constantly high BP although the GP’s are treating it as such, I didn’t use the hydrocortisone and the rash disappeared in a couple of days, they could suggest giving you a memory test, which is a slippery one way trip to somewhere no on wants to go, do your own research first until you’re sure it’s not something simple and reversible.
In the past 18 months I've had a couple of impromptu memory tests from doctors and I passed both with flying colours. (In January 2023 I couldn't name the Health Secretary, this at at a time of ever-changing Ministers, and later my cardiologist said she couldn't either!) But my very short-term memory is terrible, and I'm forever going into a room to get something, only to be unable to remember what it was that I wanted.
Yes, same for me; I thought it was just me! The worst thing was sending a WhatsApp message to the family when I was in hospital, and it made perfect sense to me. It was only when I was home and for some reason I was reading back my messages that I found that one - it was absolute garbage! I have no idea what I was trying to say.😂
I stopped all my medications for a while and my memory pretty much got back to normal, unfortunately if the meds and dosages are crucial to your health then there’s no choice but to find a way to cope with memory problems, my point was that GP’s could just diagnose you as having dementia ignoring the possible effects of the medications you’re on, then you’re off on that journey that no one wants to go on, power of attorney etc, GPs tend to think that a certain dosage of a drug works so a bigger one would work better, but if it is affecting memory then the effects just get worse, I just don’t trust doctors unreservedly to the extent that I’m now taking half doses of my prescribed meds, my BP is lower than when on the full dose and memory problems are back to normal as well, well normal for someone approaching 70, anyway good luck with your problem, I hope it can be sorted.
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when I came out of having my surgery done this year I was exactly the same, once I got home and people were coming round to visit I couldn’t get my words out that I wanted to say even though I had them in my head. Even now I’m still like that. 
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