Posted by Steve Giddings on July 30, 2001 at 09:26:50:
In Reply to: Re: Six Month Follow-up posted by THOMAS C. GLASS on July 30, 2001 at 08:20:47:
Tom:
Several folks who post to this group have described this type of problem for sime time after the surgery. Anders Kingstad described it the best, I think, when he referred to it as like "running with the handbreak on". There are a bunch of theoretical reasons that might cause this, but I think that bottom line, it just takes the old ticker a while to completely rehab after the surgery.
If you look at professional athletes who are successfully rehabbed, baseball pitchers with shoulder or elbow surgery, Tommie John, football players with knee reconstruction, Trent Green, Ernie Conwill (and baseball players, witness Mark Mcguire, I'm from St. Louis) the typical time to complete recovery is about 2 years. The heart is a muscle, and the maze puts a bunch of scars across it. Maze surgery causes much more muscle damage than bypass surgery, which doesn't violate the heart itself, just the arteries that feed it. There are few other heart surgeries other than repair of congenital defects in children, that require as many cuts, scar lines created by whatever means.It took about 2 years for that sensation of tightness, shortness of breath, fullness in the neck to go away completely for me. It would get better after about 20 minutes of warm up after about the first six months - first year. It was better some days than others. But "complete" recovery, if there is such a thing, perhaps the better phrase would be completed compensation, took about two years. It would be interesting to know if Ed Wehan feels completely recovered at this point, or still thinks there may be room for improvement. Everybody starts from a different baseline. It is frustrating, I know, but my experience has been that it does get better with time.
Steve Giddings
- Re: Six Month Follow-up Carl Plaskett 10:10:54 7/30/2001 (1)
- Re: Six Month Follow-up John W. Gross 12:13:27 7/30/2001 (0)