How bad is the pain? Set to have surgery in 12 days.

[Mday849]

I am set to have surgery on Oct 15 and I'm worried about the pain afterwards and the tube they put in mouth for breathing upon waking from surgery. Can you please tell me how those two parts went for your surgery. I'm having full sternum aortic valve replacement with the On-X valve.

 

[cldlhd]

Obviously I can't speak for anyone but myself but I don't remember the tube or much of the first 2 days after , I hope i wasn't a real PIA. My wife said I woke pretty suddenly and seemed irritated, maybe with the tube, I guess my breathing on my own was good enough because she said the tube was out within around 45 minutes.The pain wasn't bad. I do remember some discomfort but I had the button I could push when I wanted the pain meds so it never got bad. To be honest I was just so happy to be alive and been told the surgery went "perfect" according to the surgeon I wasn't complaining. There was more discomfort from the drain tubes and I was happy to see them go one by one over the course of my 6 days there. By the 3rd day in step down I was more bored than anything and wanted to go home. At night I used the pain meds more then in the day and just tried to kick back and watch some TV with the wife.
I think knowing my sternum was cut down the middle and the concern about tripping , I can be clumsy (my boy calls me Kramer sometime), was more on my mind than the pain . I've always felt pretty physically confident so I think the feeling of vulnerability had more of a psychological impact on me at that time than the pain did , hell when I screwed up my ankle playing basketball the pain was many times worse than anything I experienced throughout the OHS process.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

Having had three now and having been in a few accidents where cars have hit me on my bicycle I honestly flinch when I read these questions. Hollywood has a lot to answer for in terrorising people in ordinary life and turning everything into a drama rollercoaster.

Hospitals do not do torture. There is a wonderful array of excellent well developed drugs delivered to you EXACTLY AIMED at minimising the pain, and helping you cope.

To me its just difficult and takes time to recover from. Pain is not really an issue (except for the first few days where a sneeze or a cough will tell you don't do that).

DO NOT OBSESS over this point. If anything the whole experience simply helps you to learn about true relative stuff. When people say to you "its all relative" in the future, you will understand.

Avoiding the surgery will lead to more suffering and then death. If that is preferable then I don't want to say what you should do.

Lastly I'll say you'll be fine, focus on your job - which is recovery. Eat what you are given and do all the exersizes you are given. Report pain because its an indicator and just push gently back against the discomfort.

You will emerge stronger and healthier in every way.

Best wishes for a smooth recovery

 

[almost_hectic]

There is pain, but it's managed. For me pain wasn't a big issue. I got more hung up on the experience itself. It's hard to describe but for me it was the gravity of the situation combined with some of the side effects of anasthesia and pain meds that just made it kinda, well... its just kinda messed up my head.

 

[W. Carter]

The pain will be worse when you wake up after the surgery. I'm not going to lie to you, it is pretty bad. But like already stated here don't turn down any pain meds and it will be manageable. By the 2nd day most all the pain will be in chest and sternum. Good luck with your surgery!

 

[MrsBray]

I was surprised it didn't hurt more, actually. I never went over a self-perceived pain level of 6/10. My last narcotic dose was 48 hours after surgery. Truthfully, you probably won't remember the breathing tube at all (I have a very faint recollection). And the anesthesia does a number on your memory, making everything fuzzy for a week or so.

 

[Mday849]

I think I'm over worried about the pain. The other thing that has me worried is actually dying during surgery but my surgeon says I only have a 2 to 3 percent chance of any major complications and he specializes in neonatal heart surgery and adult congenital heart surgery. So I'm hoping since he works on neonate babies he will be fine installing the On-X valve without any problems. He says I should be fine cause I'm in great health otherwise.

 

[ELFD56]

As far as the breathing tube, I wouldn't have know I had one unless someone told me. Don't worry about the breathing tube. I had very little pain. I only felt pain is when I would get in and out of bed, it wasn't that bad. After the second day the pain meds were stopped. Just didn't need them. I think everyone worries about the surgery but it is amazing what can be done now a days. It's normal to worry but what I found out
is that worrying gets you no where.

 

[Zoltania]

The breathing tube isn't bad; at least it wasn't for me. It may feel a bit like you are breathing through a straw at first. Don't fight it, but try to feel when the breath is coming in and going out and just go with it. I found that I was able to help it along a little by matching the timing, and the tube was removed two hours after I woke up from the anesthesia.

 

[Paleowoman]

Hi Mday - I was never aware of the breathing tube at all. It was something I'd been really worried about and in the event I never knew about it. I asked dh to take of photo of me when I was asleep on the breathing tube so I know what it all looked like, but am glad I never felt it. When I woke up in ICU there was absolutley no pain. I felt very with it and well, really very good. The drain tubes were removed and I felt no pain with that either. Pain started when I was moved to high dependency and later the ward - they had changed the pain meds which didn't work well like the pain meds given in ICU. I did complain about the pain but all they did was up the meds which didn't work for me….so pain subsequently and at home bad, but not the first day in ICU.

I should think you can tell from all our replies that not everyone's experiences are the same !

Tell the hospital staff of all your worries !

 

[David W]

Hey. I just thought I’d add my tuppence ha’penny to you your question as just over a week ago I was about to have the same operation. The lovely people in here are such a valuable source of information, so use it. Please don't worry about pain. There will be discomfort yes, but I had more “pain” prior to the operation when out cycling and a car crashed head on into me amongst the leafy suburbs of South London. That was pain. As the guys have pointed out, the discomfort post op is managed by meds, I was down to taking just paracetamol 2 days after the op. It is nothing like you would expect given the scale of the operation and you will be more troubled by boredom post op than managing pain. I don't want to discredit the experience of others who had pain, it just didn't happen to me. The worst part for me was not being able to sleep. The HDU ward post op was just so stressful and I think I didn't sleep for 5 nights, they may as well of put my bed in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and I might have had more rest…..i’m still exhausted. So I can say with all honesty you will be fine and come the time when your about to leave hospital you’ll be back in this forum saying exactly the same thing to a similar question to someone like you who’s about to have the op.

Stay strong.

 

[cldlhd]

I think worrying about death before a surgery like this is normal but the odds of dying are a lot greater without the surgery. I guess the difference with surgery is you're picking the day. As for the pain meds even though it wasn't bad I still used them for almost a month post surgery, mostly at night to help me relax and sleep. Perhaps that's not the totally correct way to use them but healing occurs while you're sleeping .

 

[ottagal]

My pain was well managed and frankly I don't remember a lot from the first couple of days. To be honest, my back hurt more than my sternum. The surgery seemed to aggravate an old thoracic injury from my past.

As others said, do not worry about this. This is their area of expertise and they know the importance of managing pain control.


I agree with David W that sleep was my biggest issue and discomfort. I also felt weak due to being anemic post op.

How go and do something nice for yourself that is completely unrelated to your upcoming heart surgery.

 

[pellicle]

I think worrying about death before a surgery like this is normal but the odds of dying are a lot greater without the surgery.

sometimes I get home from work and the 50Km jouney on the 4 lanes each direction expressway has me convinced that the odds of dying are higher out there on the road.

Then I have that damn beer ... (and a scotch)

(a recent list)

 

[Mday849]

Thanks everyone Im about 1/3 nervous after reading all these post. It's just weird I went from a mild condition 9 months ago at doctors visit and having no symptoms to having chest pain and heart palpitations out of no where. Then I go to doctor and they tell me I need surgery that I now have severe aortic stenosis and my regurgitation is now getting close to severe and that my heart is starting to thicken.

 

[pellicle]

Well glad you are feeling better

These things always take time to "grok" and the valves don't help by failing in a non linear way. By this I mean something like the graph below. (Which is not related to heart anything but just to explain what I meant by non linear. Getting worse rapidly after seeming to "smoulder" for a while)

Talking always helps

 

[LondonAndy]

I have to agree with others here: pain was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, thanks to the pain management - frankly more a discomfort than pain, and the biggest issue for me too was sleep afterwards - I strongly recommend taking some good quality ear plugs to use in the high dependency ward afterwards! (I later discovered my hospital even supplied these in a welcome pack for patients, but as I was an emergency admission I didn't get this). I don't know what it is like in other countries, but here in the UK I find it surprising how little respect hospitals have for the sleep needs of patients. I realise that nursing staff have to do their jobs and the alarms of monitoring machines need to be heard, but noise still seemed excessive.

Pre-op, a nurse said to me "don't be a martyr to pain" - should you find you are in pain, say something and they will give you something to help it, and it worked just fine for me.

 

[cldlhd]

Well here in the United States,at least in my experience, the patients sleep isn't a top priority either. The place where I had my surgery actually has 2 hospitals . I had mine in the older one and in the step down unit you share the room with another patient. They would come in and check his vitals at let's say 1:00 a.m. and succeed in waking me up then 2 hours later come in and check mine. Turns out the new hospital has private rooms with couches that pull out into a bed......

 

[Zoltania]

These things always take time to "grok" and the valves don't help by failing in a non linear way. By this I mean something like the graph below. (Which is not related to heart anything but just to explain what I meant by non linear. Getting worse rapidly after seeming to "smoulder" for a while)

I think of the progression as a snowball rolling downhill. The bigger it gets, the faster it rolls.

 

[almost_hectic]

I think I'm over worried about the pain. The other thing that has me worried is actually dying during surgery but my surgeon says I only have a 2 to 3 percent chance of any major complications and he specializes in neonatal heart surgery and adult congenital heart surgery. So I'm hoping since he works on neonate babies he will be fine installing the On-X valve without any problems. He says I should be fine cause I'm in great health otherwise.

I was careful to not let myself worry at length about the possibility of dying. First I knew it was a very remote chance if at all. Second, it was out of my hands, so why drive myself crazy worrying about what's out of my control. That being said, I did prepare some things in the event that it were to happen. I went to an attorney and put my house in a trust and made out a will. Plus I filled out and submitted the legal forms the hospital provided for Advanced Directives with my final wishes.

I wasn't trying to dwell on the thought of my own passing. I just didn't want to leave personal affairs and my finances a mess for family members to have to untangle through legal channels while in an emotional state.