8 weeks post op of a Mechanical Aortic Valve.....shortness of breath question

[PeteCrev]

Hello I am almost 8 weeks post op for my St.Jude Mechanical Aortic Valve and have shortness of breath, mostly while outside in the cold weather here in Jersey. Does anyone know when this starts to go away? I know they cad to collapse a lung during my surgery and was wondering what are the chances of that collapsing again? The other night i had woke up and had a terrible pain / cramp in my right side and whenever I took a breath I would hurt....but since then its been a lot better.....I just dont know.

 

[neil]

hi pete, if your worried have a word with your doc,

 

[Duffey]

Better get it checked out, Pete, the pain when taking a deep breath sounds suspicious. It probably has nothing to do with the valve but more likely a pleural effusion.

 

[epstns]

I had some pleural effusion post op, with similar symptoms. One of my lungs took a couple of weeks to fully re-inflate, and had some fluid build-up at the same time. I understand it is pretty common after OHS. Sometimes they prescribe major meds for it. My doc said mine was mild and told me to take some ibuprofen for a few days. It does go away, but can be scary. Very worth the discussion and maybe a visit with your doc.

 

[SumoRunner]

I had the collapsed lung thing too, so I pushed through the discomfort, not pain, just shortness of breath. It took about 5 mos for the lung to come all the way back. At 6 weeks I could run about 100 yards, at 12 weeks about 1 mile and by 5 months I was running 3 miles a day again. Since I knew what the problem was I also knew the way to re-inflate it was to do a whole lot of deep breathing. Running was the right solution.