Chest and shoulder pain 5 months after Mitral Valve repair

[ashish20000]

Hi All
Hope all of you are doing fine. I am 30 years old had robotic mitral valve repair surgery in Cleveland Clinic on 10th March 2010 so it has been almost 5 months since my surgery. I am doing great overall and going to Cardiac Rehab. Had my 6 month check-up done and all reports came fine.
I have been getting chest and shoulder pains after the surgery whenever I travel for 5-6 hours in a car. The chest pain feels sharper when I inhale. It also hurts when I switch sides while lying down. The left shoulder pain remains between the neck and the end of the shoulder.
I have experienced this pain 3-4 times before and it goes away after taking Naproxin for a few days. I just wanted to share this with you and find out if there is anything I can do to avoid the pain or how long it will take before this pain goes away completely. Please share your thoughts. Thanks.
Ashish

 

[ejc61]

Hello Ashish,
I had the same surgery last year. At about 7 weeks, I had some pains of various intensities. It seemed to move from back to side to chest. Every day was a different spot. It wasn't constant however. It was a mix of pleural effusion/dressler's syndrome which sometimes occur after surgery. I'm not sure after 5 month's however. My surgeon said that if I had any issues, let him know directly. I would highly recommend that you call your surgeon and let him know what you are feeling. Consider it a followup to surgery. He shouldn't mind.

 

[Kathy McCain]

Hi Ashish,

Sounds like it might POSSIBLY BE pericarditis. What you are describing sounds similar to what I had, appox one month after surgery. The Dr's gave me every kind of drug there is for this, and nothing but prednisone works. Unfortunately when I stopped taking the drug the pericarditis returned. As long as I took the medicine though, I was just fine. After 2 1/2 yrs of being on a low dose, (I started with 60 mg) I am now on 2 1/2 mg each day. My AVR was done Feb 2008. I tried discontinuing the drug 2 yrs after surgery, but some of the symptoms returned, milder symptoms, not acute like before though. I must STRESS though that EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. We have had others on this forum with this problem too. It sounds unbelievable I know to experience this problem for so long, but I know my body and the symptoms. Hopefully, if in fact this is what you are experiencing, your condition will not be so stubborn!

 

[ALCapshaw2]

Ashish -

When you travel by car, are you sitting erect, or slouching?
Posture could be a factor in both your chest and shoulder pain.

Many of our members noted Back / Shoulder pain following OHS which is probably a result of having your arms extended over your head during surgery.

Also, Many of us found that MASSAGE often works Better and Faster than Pain Medications.

I found doing excercises on a "Hand-Cycle" machine (peddles similar to a tricycle wheel with adjustable resistance) helped releive Shoulder Pain and loosen up those tight muscles. Be sure to rotate both forward and back. I would alternate directions every one or two minutes.

'AL Capshaw'

 

[Shobu]

I had significant back/shoulder/neck (sorry, not chest) issues on my left side mostly, after my first OHS. Got to know my chiropractor very well Went in frequently at first until he tried me on massage, and that cut my visits down to about every month (although some of those massages hurt As I got into better and better shape and my back and shoulders got stronger I found that I didn't need to go back as often to my chiro and was down to about every 4-5 months...at least till I slacked off on my fitness regimen and all the back issues returned. Also found posture was a big role; if my posture was bad for any significant amount of time, my shoulder on the left never fails to flare up, with a lot of aching and even some numbness in my fingers if it gets really bad...until a massage and/or better posture and then it's gone. According to my chiro, something to do with nerves that travel down from the neck through the shoulder area then down the arm.
After my second OHS (6 weeks post-op tomorrow) I don't have the same issues, however there are bunch of new issues, thanks to the way they had me postured during surgery as well as how they put me back together.
Sorry, know it doesn't answer your question directly, although my shoulder issues were between the neck and head of the shoulder as well.
Hope you get some relief.

--Dan

 

[Mentu]

Hi, Ashish, as you can see in the responses so far, there are a number of possible factors causing your discomfort; I can suggest another possible source. At seven months or so, I developed costochondritis. This is an inflammation of the cartilage where the ribs meet the sternum. The main symptom is chest pain but it is centered along side the sternum not in the middle. It also does another odd thing; at its worst, the inflammation can move along the pectoralis minor to the shoulder so you get pain along the sternum and shoulder at the same time. There can also be swelling along side the sternum. I found that, while driving, the shoulder strap made the discomfort worse than anything else and since it started have used a small very soft pillow when driving to keep the shoulder strap from touching my chest.

It usually goes away on its own after some weeks. I've found that for me aspirin is the drug of choice to treat it. No one knows what causes costochondritis but it is associated with getting thumped in the chest. I think any kind of heart surgery qualifies.

Larry