I have finally decided on surgery, but it's still more than a month away. I was diagnosed 11 months ago, but the medicine (beta-blocker, ace inhibitor, lanoxin, spironolactone) worked so well that my heart shrunk back to almost normal, and the ejection fraction up from < 20% to 45%, that we (cardiologist, surgeon, myself) decided to wait a while, or until things got worse.
I didn't know about this forum until recently. I found it just after I decided on surgery, but during the past year, and even now, while waiting, I have been wondering about how to best exercise with my leaky valves and CHF medication. My cardiologist told me it was safe to exercise moderately as long as everything felt OK (no symptoms), but he does not have (m)any patients in my age group, diagnosis, and/or actively exercising.
My personal experience has been that the medicine pretty much sets the limit to how hard I can exercise. The medicine drops my normal workout pulse by 20-25 bpm, to ~130-140 bpm at what feels like the same exertion level. The output capacity is less, of course. I am 39, and was in pretty good shape after bicycle commuting for the last 5 years, prior to the diagnosis. Another experience is that my muscles get more sore, and the soreness lasts much longer, when on the medication.
If I have pushed too hard for too long, I get fluid buildup in the lungs and asthma like wheezy breathing ("cardiac asthma"). This happened badly only once, when I tried to pick up bike commuting to and from work this spring. I almost didn't make it home, which was pretty scary, and in fact dangerous. Fortunately, it eased in a matter of minutes after sitting down. This incident was one of the main reasons I decided it was time for surgery, even though an echo a few days after showed about the same "stabilized" numbers as during the past few months.
But I don't want to sit on my butt for a whole month either, so I will keep exercising every other day or so, but moderately, and indoors on stationary machines, where I can better control the level and keep an eye on my pulse monitor, and stop whenever I feel like.
I should add that I have been exercising moderately this whole year, without any adverse effects to the echocardiogram numbers.
Other thoughts or advice on living healthy while waiting for surgery?
I didn't know about this forum until recently. I found it just after I decided on surgery, but during the past year, and even now, while waiting, I have been wondering about how to best exercise with my leaky valves and CHF medication. My cardiologist told me it was safe to exercise moderately as long as everything felt OK (no symptoms), but he does not have (m)any patients in my age group, diagnosis, and/or actively exercising.
My personal experience has been that the medicine pretty much sets the limit to how hard I can exercise. The medicine drops my normal workout pulse by 20-25 bpm, to ~130-140 bpm at what feels like the same exertion level. The output capacity is less, of course. I am 39, and was in pretty good shape after bicycle commuting for the last 5 years, prior to the diagnosis. Another experience is that my muscles get more sore, and the soreness lasts much longer, when on the medication.
If I have pushed too hard for too long, I get fluid buildup in the lungs and asthma like wheezy breathing ("cardiac asthma"). This happened badly only once, when I tried to pick up bike commuting to and from work this spring. I almost didn't make it home, which was pretty scary, and in fact dangerous. Fortunately, it eased in a matter of minutes after sitting down. This incident was one of the main reasons I decided it was time for surgery, even though an echo a few days after showed about the same "stabilized" numbers as during the past few months.
But I don't want to sit on my butt for a whole month either, so I will keep exercising every other day or so, but moderately, and indoors on stationary machines, where I can better control the level and keep an eye on my pulse monitor, and stop whenever I feel like.
I should add that I have been exercising moderately this whole year, without any adverse effects to the echocardiogram numbers.
Other thoughts or advice on living healthy while waiting for surgery?
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) I still picked something up and is now, 10 days before surgery, as sick as a dog. Have just e-mailed my surgeon and cardiologist with this, to my mind, bad news.
