Irregular ticking

[Patsman07]

i am 4 weeks post up today. recovery has been fine so far, however now that i can hear my mechanical valve ticking i've noticed that when i sit or lie down it ticks irregularly for a while. this is accompanied by a feeling of slight pressure in my chest & a little faintness.
has anyone else experienced something similar?

 

[pellicle]

By ticks irregularly do you mean that it doesn't tick with each beat or that your heart beats change pace and then re settle?

The mechanical valve makes one more aware of ones heart beat, but then if I recall properly 20 odd years ago I also was very aware of my heart beat when I got somebody else's valve.

Mine is less noisy then whenI got it and it matters which side I lay on to how I notice it.

 

[Patsman07]

say for the sake of argument that my heart rate is 60 beats per minute. that should be once every second. most of the time when i listen to the valve ticking it ticks every second, regularly. sometimes when i sit or lie down it will tick normally, as in every second and then for no apparent reason there's a two second gap between ticks, a few normal ticks, then two ticks in quick succession... this can last for about half an hour before i get a normal regular tick again

 

[dick0236]

These irregular or skipped beats are not unusual and I have them from time to time......so does my wife and she has not had heart surgery. I don't believe mine have lasted anywhere close to half an hour except for my one confirmed afib episode around one year ago. Since you are just out of surgery I'd let my docs know......better safe than sorry.

 

[pellicle]

OK, so the ticking is still regular with the beats, good.

I agree with Dicks assessment

 

[river-wear]

I agree with the other guys; mention it to your doctor. However, when I was around 4 weeks post-op (just under 4 weeks ago) my heart would have a lot of palpitations whenever I would lay down. Sometimes it would go on for 20 minutes or more and it drove me nuts... or rather, scared me. I found that if it did that for more than five minutes or so, I could get my heart to settle down if I sat back up for a couple of minutes. It went away after a week or so, and now I get the occasional weird beats but it's not very often.

If your pulse starts racing for no reason, then you should call your doctor right away.