Cured Excessive Sweating after valve repair/replacement surgery?

[David Harper]

I have Mitral Valve Prolapse (MVP) and suffering from excessive sweating when I'm anxious or having panic attacks. Is there anyone who had excessive sweating and cured it after valve repair/replacement surgery?

 

[Eva]

Excessive sweating can be caused by many factors among which are: anxiety, stress, panic attacks, hyperthyroidism, obesity, medication side effects, etc.

Hopefully your anxiety and panic attacks may become much less or disappear after your surgery, if you are worrying much about your heart condition!

Good luck.

 

[ZachL]

How long ago was your surgery?

After my OHS I excessively sweat for the first 3-4 months through the winter with my house temp around 60-65. I believe it was a side effect of the prescription drugs I was on. It started to go away once I was off the prescription pain killers, it didn't go away immediately but I just figured it was either the pain killers and my body trying to recover from an invasive surgery.

 

[tom in MO]

Excessive sweating can occur in men from hypogonadism (lack of sufficient testosterone). This would not be just low testosterone levels from normal aging, but sometimes a man's body will stop producing testosterone. The reason is usually unknown. One of the effects is bouts of excessive sweating. Other effects are being irritable, having trouble staying awake in the afternoon and sexual dysfunction.

 

[Protimenow]

I had a situation with an antidepressant years ago -- it made me sweat profusely - especially after any amount of physical activity. I jettisoned that stuff and the sweating went away.

 

[Superman]

Nope. Still a sweaty boy.

 

[Thomas]

I didn't have it before surgery but I had brutal night sweats when I got home after surgery for a week or two then it stopped. My doc didn't know why they came and went.

 

[epstns]

Thomas - I'd write off the post-op night sweats to the hell that your system goes through with all the meds used in surgery.

With respect to heavy perspiration before valve replacement, that was me. Prior to my aortic valve replacement, I had "technically" severe AS, but was still asymptomatic. I went to the gym 5 days a week and ran 3 miles daily. I sweated so much that when I went to shower after my run, I could actually wring the sweat out of my shirt. I was drenched.

Now, almost 9 years after AVR, I still hit the gym daily. I don't run any more (knees said so), but I do continue to do 30 minutes of cardio exercise on an Arc Trainer, then another 30-40 minutes on weight machines. I sweat, but only a normal amount. My shirt is just damp, not soaked any more. I actually think that I perspire less after valve replacement.

 

[Protimenow]

Tom: I don't get any pleasure from putting down clinical labs. Many do a great job.

My first point was - the labs have less to lose if they report INR erroneously than the meters. It's true. This doesn't necessarily imply that labs always get it wrong -- only that, if they do, it probably won't do them any damage. Certainly nowhere near the damage that a faulty meter will do to the company that makes it.

My second point - labs can, and do, screw up. Over the past year, I've had at least four erroneous readings from three different labs. Perhaps they all got reagents with the wrong values. Perhaps the blood was mishandled. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Whatever it was that caused the WRONG reading, the lab reading WAS wrong. Way wrong. More than 30% more than the meter WRONG. Just because a lab did the testing, you can't automatically assume that the result is correct.

Tom - like you seem to do, I used to put nearly absolute faith in the accuracy of the lab results. I've learned that this blanket confidence can sometimes be misplaced and unearned. I'm at the point, after seeing more than enough WRONG readings (more than 30% higher than the meter) from labs that a bit of skepticism is in order.

(I have to Coag-Sense meters, and when I get a funny lab reading, I test on both meters then, if I feel that it's necessary, I have my blood analyzed by a different lab).

Sure, I realize that INR measurement is inexact. I'm not looking for exact values - but, instead I look at ranges But if labs report results that are considerably out of range, I'm skeptical. I believe that I should be.

 

[epstns]

Protime - I will second the notion that labs do get things wrong. . . sometimes. I have another medical condition for which periodic blood testing is required, and participate in another internet board/support group focused upon that medical condition. Many times members post of their most recent blood work being way out of line, possibly indicating treatment failure or the need for aggressive treatments. Our first caution to them is to have a retest done. Most people (neither you nor I, though) are surprised at how often that retest shows values back at the expected levels and that there is no explanation available for why the one reading is such an outlier. We can only surmise it is a lab error.

Also like you, I don't "blame" anyone. I just caution people that it is important to "trust, but verify" suspect readings.