1 Week Post-Op Questions

[Mike1952]

Does anyone remember what pain meds they needed for the first couple of weeks after surgery? Today is my 1 week anniversary since the surgery. I have been taking vicadin every 4 hours which seems to work ok. Today, though it has been 7 hours since I took it and I don't seem to need it yet, anyway. I am considering not taking it except at night, to help me sleep a little easier. Sleeping, by the way, is kind of hard. I'm not used to sleeping on my back.
All in all, I am doing fine but it is amazing how tired I feel after my walks!
I got a call from the cardiac rehab today asking if I were interested in their 12 week program with one hour workout, three days a week. Kind of spendy, I think it is $155 each appt. My health insurance would probably cover it but I hate to waste money! If I were to do it, should I wait till I'm a couple of months post op?
As a person who has always exercised, I'm not sure if I really need it but maybe it would be good to have the interaction with PT and other patients? Appreciate any thoughts or experiences!

 

[Greg a]

I am a big proponent of rehab but I don't pay for it and want to get back to it as I am facing new challenges ...it is a great monitored excercise and LIFESTYLE pgm where exercise benchmarks can be set for you .....an added benefit is that most everyone around you has been through OHS and you can comparre notes.....as to pain meds I was still comatose two weeks post op and have no idea what cocktail of meds I was on but damn they must have been good from what memories I have of that time

 

[karla]

I came home using hydrocodone several times a day. A few days after being home, I started using the hydrocodone in the morning and night with acetaminophen in between. Soon, I was using hydrocodone only at night and acetaminophen if I needed it during the day. After a month or so, I stopped the nighttime hydrocodone and only used the acetaminophen if i needed it.
As far as rehab goes, I found it very helpful but my insurance paid for it 100%. I was offered the 12 week program but "graduated" at 6 weeks as I met all my goals and then some. The main benefit for me was the reassurance it gave me that I could push myself physically and nothing bad was going to happen.
Let us know what you decide!

 

[Jkm7]

Both my OHS, I was given percocet in the hospital and sent home with it. For me, it was just right. It provided the relief I needed and my body responded fine to it. I used it my first week home and then cut back during the days to only tylenol most days and percocet at night so I could sleep. I never finished the Rx I had as I was able to ease onto just tylenol.

 

[Fundy]

I had a ten day prescription for 2 mg dilaudid every 4-6 hours. I seen family doctor 7 days after hospital and he gave me a 30 day prescription. so counting the five days in hospital , that's about 45 days using dilaudid. At first found that after about 5 or 6 hours my throat hurt, almost unbearably. I don't think I could have done without dilaudid or something for first month for sure because of that itself. 9 months later, still is fairly uncomfortable to yawn.

If not for the throat pain, I probably could have done without it after the original 10 day prescription. But if I had to do it again ( which I will), I 'd definitely want to be taking 2mg every 6 hours for the first 6 weeks. I couldn't drive until then anyway so why not be as low level of discomfort as possible.

In terms of getting addicted to the stuff, I had no problem stopping them.

 

[Garserin]

I was able to control my pain with just Tylenol starting three days after surgery (full sternotomy) and stopped taking any pain medication by three weeks. My cardiac rehab was paid for by insurance, I did 12 weeks starting three weeks after surgery. Since I had not been physically active before OHS I felt I really needed it. Actually I enjoyed it so much that I continued for about a month afterwards paying for it myself.

 

[Mike1952]

Greg,

I just read your 2007 Post about what you have been through, wow! So happy you are alive and enjoying life!

I am a big proponent of rehab but I don't pay for it and want to get back to it as I am facing new challenges ...it is a great monitored excercise and LIFESTYLE pgm where exercise benchmarks can be set for you .....an added benefit is that most everyone around you has been through OHS and you can comparre notes.....as to pain meds I was still comatose two weeks post op and have no idea what cocktail of meds I was on but damn they must have been good from what memories I have of that time

 

[AgilityDog]

I can't take oxycodone/oxycontin. I took tylenol with codine (tylenol3) once I was out of the hospital. Morphine in the hospital for about a week.
I took the T3 for several weeks.
Rehab generally starts about week 6-8 for most people, and it is well worth it, especially if insurance will pay for it.

 

[ESF]

I was on percocet in the hospital, and at day 6, asked only to have it at night, which I continued to do at home for the first week. No pain meds during the day.

Sleeping was hard, as I'm not a back sleeper, and it was a couple of months before I slept through the night completely.

Keep walking and rest up afterwards. I found that increasing how far I walked each day helped me build up my strength and endurance quickly: I was able to walk to and from my GP's office two weeks after surgery: 4 blocks each way, 8 blocks round trip, and to my cardiologist appointment three weeks after surgery: 12 blocks each way.

I didn't do the rehab: as I was in very good shape prior to surgery (except for the valve issues), my cardiologist said I didn't need to go unless I really wanted to. Since there wasn't a convenient cardiac rehab place near me, I worked on my own at the gym, using common sense, the lifting guidelines set up by the surgeon and listening to my body. Six months post op, I'm back to where I was before I started showing symptoms: the doctors are very pleased with how well I'm doing, so this way worked out for me.

Health insurance should cover the rehab if you do choose to do it.

 

[Greg a]

Mike, I don't think I was EVER so happy to say goodbye to a year and welcome 2008......each time they brought me back, they told my wife that they had no idea what was keeping me alive .....I always tell people that it was my wife and family who went through so much ....I just slept....since 2007 my son got married and they gave me a new grand daughter ......my daughter has had great carreer success and she too has added another Grand daughter bringing team PINK to three ....LIFE is good !!!!!!!

Someday I will record some of the bizare things I saw and heard while in the comas and even write about the serenity I felt in the warmth of the "brilliant light" but I am not sure I want to dredge up that in detail just yet....soon maybe but not yet! I was just diagnosed with macular degeneration and so am focusing on both the renal failure to avoid dialysis and looking forward to saving my eyesight as there are new treatments for macular degeneration and see that specialist next week

LIFE IS GOOD !!!!!!

Greg,

I just read your 2007 Post about what you have been through, wow! So happy you are alive and enjoying life!

I am a big proponent of rehab but I don't pay for it and want to get back to it as I am facing new challenges ...it is a great monitored excercise and LIFESTYLE pgm where exercise benchmarks can be set for you .....an added benefit is that most everyone around you has been through OHS and you can comparre notes.....as to pain meds I was still comatose two weeks post op and have no idea what cocktail of meds I was on but damn they must have been good from what memories I have of that time

 

[Forrest]

Mike,

I was on Hydromorphone (aka: Dilaudid). Late in the second week I started to take as needed, which was at least half the time, by start of 3rd week I told doc I was going to come off of narcotics, he said I should at least take at night so I could get better sleep (a good night’s sleep helps with healing). I did that for another week, and sometimes broke them in half if I felt less pain. Like you, I also had trouble sleeping on my back. And I didn’t feel up to sleeping on my stomach. I was still recovering from a sports injury (torn rotator cuff) so couldn’t sleep on my right shoulder, and had a nasty bed abrasion on my tail bone which made it hard to sleep propped up on my rear as well (due to being skinny and a longer hospital stay). I had lost a lot of weight, had none to spare, so they wanted me to get more sleep. No matter how much I ate the weight wouldn’t start coming back for 2 months, shows you how much your body is healing from the inside out and needing larger amounts of nutrients and calories.

Early on I was a candidate to have a shorter than average hospital stay, but once inside they found out my native aortic valve was positioned lower than it should be (part of my congenital issues) so surgeon had to make several more cuts than usual to pull things up higher. I also had a post-op complication, my kidneys, liver and pancreas were trying to shut down in reaction to having been on the heart/lung machine, and that took several days to resolve, so I stayed 8 days in the hospital. I was put on 3 different pain meds during my stay, but hallucinated too much on each one until switched to Dilaudid.

I was initially interested in Cardio-Rehab, but also wanted to save on potential copay bills (not sure, my plan may have been willing to authorize 100% payment for a few visits). But everyone on my surgery team and cardiologist’s team told me that I wouldn’t need cardio-rehab, unless I really wanted it. I decided to make up my own rehab program and stuck to it. However, I’ve heard many good things about cardio-rehab and that it’s not only good physically, but offers safe exercise monitoring by cardio nurses and most of all, a way to get more camaraderie & support from other patients.

I too got tired easily my first few days home, it’s amazing that a 10 minute walk could be so exhausting. Even talking longer on the telephone made me winded! It's interesting to read the above replies, some folks have really gone through quite a bit. Sounds like you’re taking a great approach in your recovery. Best wishes.

 

[Garrett]

I took nothing for the two to three weeks out of the hospital. Now, week 7-8 I am in more pain since I am moving around more. In the morning I take turmeric (for the curcumin) and bromelain supplements, along with an acetaminophen (but only if I am in a lot of pain waking up). Throughout the day if I get in a lot of pain I will remedy with a couple ibuprofen and hot pack (on where it hurts). I find simple ibuprofen to work best. Hey, I am also 19.

 

[Bill B]

Why are you sleeping on your back if you don't like it? I slept on my side in the hospital within a day or two after surgery. With proper pillow support. this is fine. Maybe sleeping on your stomach might not be such a good idea, but I don't know why you must sleep on your back.

Unless you have persistent pain, you should be able to use the pain pills only as needed. Oddly enough, I never had any pain post-op and never took any pain pills.

It's expected to be very wiped out initially from your walks.

MANY people here will tell you cardiac rehab was almost essential to their recovery. It was for me. It's carefully monitored, graduated, regularly scheduled exercise guided by people who know what they are doing. They may be overly cautious at first, as the majority of their patents are post-MI or cardiac bypass and have more significant heart damage than us valvers. But as they gauge your ability, they should accelerate your excercise regimen. I tripled my exercise capacity.

 

[Mom2izzy]

I never took anything stronger than Tylenol and Motrin after leaving the hospital (day 5 post op)...not because I didn't want something better, but because everything stronger made me sick. Motrin doesn't make the anti-coag people very happy, so I dropped that out after a few days.

I hate sleeping on my back too. I slept in a recliner for a couple days, but once I felt comfortable with stairs and got up to my own bed, I started easing more and more onto my side. It was more comfortable when I hugged a big, firm pillow. It kept my chest open/flat.

I needed rehab because: 1) I was anxious about how much to take on. 2) I needed someone to be accountable to so I wouldn't cut my workouts short or skip them all together. 3) I needed it to be "rehab" in order to get the time off work to go. If you are disciplined enough to do it on your own without the anxiety, it probably isn't necessary. I was actually quite annoyed by mine at times because it was TOTALLY geared toward people with heart disease/ heart attacks...not for valvers. I did have one heart transplant patient in my class...he was inspiring!