Palipations, or not???

[sensei Ade]

Folks,
I'd appreciate your views on this one: In my recovery phase (now at 9 months), my heart beat is still more of a heart thump rather than a heart beat. Things are still settling, wow this takes so long!!

Anyway, my 'thumps' can be strong, and when they are, my bp is higher and my hands get a bit clammy. When you look up the definition of palpitations, you see 'pounding heart' mentioned, but this appears to be where there is also rapid heart beat. This is never clear. In my case the pound/thump is there but rhythm and rate are normal apart from the odd ectopic beat.

Basically, am I getting palpitations or not??? Or is this just high bp symptoms? What do you reckon?

Thanks all

sensei

 

[Mentu]

Before my AVR at age 59, I had never found my pulse in my wrist as easily as other people seemed to do. Immediately after surgery, one of the first questions I asked was about my thundering heart beat. The nurse smiled and told me that it takes awhile for one to become used it. This "thundering" was different from the palpitations I had before surgery. Those left me feeling exhausted - drained of energy. I still notice it once in awhile and I have no difficulty finding my pulse now. However, I would suggest you bring this to your doctor's attention. The elevated blood pressure and clammy hands could be a stress response to your awareness of your heart beat but you should get it checked. It never hurts to check. Your doctor can only help if you raise the issue even if it is just to reassure you that you are ok.

Larry

 

[Michellemar]

Oh yes, the thundering heart! While you should check with your Dr. Just to be SURE, my heart (4months out now) at times is so "thunderous" I think my bed shakes!!! When I brought it up, I got the smiles from a cardiac nurse... She said she heard that alot with new post-ops!

 

[Bina]

Yes, the forceful thumping can be scarey....I remember sitting on my deck chair literally paralyzed with fear.
This is one of the reasons that I stayed on the Metoprolol because it kept the HB force in check.

 

[Julian]

Oh man! Super strong heart beat. The first several days post op were the worst, I was in the hospital and these hard heart beats would come and go. At times it would shake my whole body. Other times I would see the heart beat in my eyes, it would move my vision. It would thump so hard it would almost hurt. Here I sit 2 weeks post op and the hard heart beats have calmed down a lot! I mostly get em' in the morning now for a couple of hours but its less than half of what it was a week ago.

It can be freakin' scary, I remember asking some of the doctors in the hospital and each gave different answers. I truly think it just takes time for this to resolve to the point where its tolerable. When I say time I mean TIME, weeks, months, even years. Between meds, stress, surgery trauma to heart and whole body, stress to heart before surgery for years of over pumping.

 

[Marguerite53]

By all means, check with your doctor. I doubt that it's a concern, medically, but they should be kept apprised of your recovery, anyway!

I'm afraid I don't remember how many months out I was (possibly at 5 months) but I, too, got the thunderous heartbeats. I think I upped my beta blockers for awhile at the doctor's suggestion. Nothing was wrong, but they were producing some anxiety in me, so if there's a med to put things right for awhile, why not, is how I figured it.

Good luck and keep us posted

Marguerite

 

[normofthenorth]

It sounds like you've already had it checked out with a Holter or some such (judging by "the odd ectopic beat", which I think is hard to detect otherwise, no?). At ~8.5 months post-op, otherwise great, I've recently started noticing very low HR (50s or 40s and even 30s!) when I am in bed or sitting very still for a while, and each pulse is BIG. Wore a Holter a week ago, and Cardiologist says it's PACs (a kind of ectopic beat, I think).

He mostly reassured me, which Wikipedia lists as the dominant treatment. Like many things, it'll go in one of 3 ways -- up, down, or sideways. He suggested I might tone down the caffeine/coffee, or the dark chocolate at bed-time. If it gets worse, we've got options. He didn't think much of my suggestion to run around the block when it's happening.

 

[sensei Ade]

Hi everyone,
Thanks so much for your feedback and advice. We can see that the thundering heart issue in the early days is all part of the recovery process so we all take comfort from that. I've actually had a follow-up with my consultant today and he's taken a look at my blood pressure readings from my wrist monitor. He immediately noted that my diastolic is consistently at 85 and above, so basically, in my case, the thumping is due to high blood pressure rather than post-op recovery, so he's advised me to come off the beta blockers and go on Ramipril for high blood pressure. So you can reach a point where you have to question what the thumping is after many months of recovery. Not clear cut this, but it's OK as long as you get things checked out. I just look forward to being able to stand in a queue to buy a tea without a thumping heart, clammy hands and occasional dizzinness. BTW, he also mentioned that the high blood pressure is a completely separate issue to the heart surgery. The fact that we've had heart surgery does not make us more prone to high blood pressure, interesting eh.

Have a great weekend all

sensei