please god tell me the ticking and popping feeling will get better!!

[Enudely]

I'm 6 weeks post op and I know I shouldn't complain, but my valve is SO loud! There is no more "quiet" for me. Every time I sit down to read or put my kids to bed or sit at the computer, or take a relaxing bath, the ticking is there. I really don't know how I'm going to live with this for the rest of my life. I will never experience true quiet again. It will always be there. Will it get quieter? Also, the popping feeling in my chest. every. heart. beat, it pops. I just feel like we're not meant to be so aware of our hearts beating!
I sometimes feel like i'm going to lose my mind over this! I should just be glad to be alive, but I cannot stand the ticking! People keep saying I'll get used to it and learn to tune it out but I just can't imagine that. I am a musician and extra sensitive. I really feel like I'm always going to hear it. Any words of encouragement would help. Anything I can do to make it quieter? heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp! :eek2:

 

[Greg a]

Have you ever read a book in a library with richly panelled dark wood wall and shelves full of classics and first edition leather bound books. The air is fragrant with scents infused I'm the pages filling those shelves and off in the corner is a grandfather clock with its hypnotic pendlum swinging back and forth keeping time with the ticking of the movement.

Okay now you have the clock and let the mind create the rest

I know that won't stop the sound but maybe help to handle it

Close your eyes and try it Then imagine the same room with a two year old and a four year old frolicking about glad to just have mommy nearby

A NEW normal

Take that from one whose grand daughters (6and2) are glad he is here with or without a sternum as the little he can contribute to their lives is worth everything I have endured this is MY NEW NORMAL




.

 

[bdryer]

What make and model of AV was implanted?

 

[Cooker]

It will get better ... I hardly ever hear mine anymore ... I don't know when you had your surgery but it does and will become a non issue .... hang tough:thumbup:

 

[dick0236]

I agree with Cooker.....it WILL get much better. Six weeks after OHS is not a long time. Once the body heals and the heart reconfigures around the valve, it will get quieter.....and you will get used to it.

 

[drivetopless]

Your own built in metronome

Your own built in metronome

I'm curious as to what type of valve you recevied, too?
Has it gotten louder with time?
Do you hear it all the time or more in certain positions?

I'm 10 days post op and could hear my On-x from day one. It is a very soft, subtle mechanical wristwatch tick in my right ear. I assume the sound is traveling through my jugular. I don't hear it in the left ear. I can make it go away usually by changing the angle of my head/shoulders. It is louder when I lay down. I don't really notice it when I"m busy. Sometimes I try to hear it and I cannot. When I do hear it, it is soft enough I don't find it too distracting, at least not yet.

I"ve heard that it will get softer with time, but it may take months, not days.

 

[Philip B]

Tick... Tick

Tick... Tick

Body acoustics vary widely. Odds are pretty good that things will improve for you. It just takes time.

-Philip

 

[ALCapshaw2]

Was your Aortic Vavle Stenotic (partially closed) before your surgery?
If so, what was your Effective Valve Area?

Was your Left Ventricle enlarged before your Surgery?
IF you had surgery before the enlargement became permanent,
your left ventricle should shrink back to normal size.
Your surgeon may be able to tell you more about this.

Either or Both of the above conditions will cause your Heart Muscles to 'build up' and Pump Harder. When you receive a New Valve with larger opening (and lower pressure gradient), your heart will still want to continue to 'Pump Hard' as it was doing before surgery. It can take Many Months for your Heart to "remodel" to it's new operating environment. This can be true for either / both Mechanical Valves and Tissue Valves.

Your profile doesn't indicate anything about an aortic aneurysm or receiving a dacron graft to replace part of your aorta so I *assume* this is not an issue in your case. Some patients who have received a dacron graft reported an Intense Heart Beat similar to the 'Water-Hammer Effect' in plumbing systems that they could feel as well as hear.

'AL Capshaw'

 

[Duff Man]

Some patients who have received a dacron graft reported an Intense Heart Beat similar to the 'Water-Hammer Effect' in plumbing systems that they could feel as well as hear.

'AL Capshaw'

Not that I want to steal Enudely's thunder, but does that sensation go away for people who experience it post surgery? I could deal with the clicking, but water-hammer sounds like hell on earth.

 

[normofthenorth]

Was your Aortic Vavle Stenotic (partially closed) before your surgery?
If so, what was your Effective Valve Area?

Was your Left Ventricle enlarged before your Surgery?
IF you had surgery before the enlargement became permanent,
your left ventricle should shrink back to normal size.
Your surgeon may be able to tell you more about this.

Either or Both of the above conditions will cause your Heart Muscles to 'build up' and Pump Harder. When you receive a New Valve with larger opening (and lower pressure gradient), your heart will still want to continue to 'Pump Hard' as it was doing before surgery. It can take Many Months for your Heart to "remodel" to it's new operating environment. This can be true for either / both Mechanical Valves and Tissue Valves.

'AL Capshaw'

Enudely, this has bugged you a few times before, and "the usual suspects" have responded here with whatever wisdom and suggestions we've got. I'm not sure any of it has changed much, except that your heart is still hyper-active, and your valve is still loud. Sorry to hear that, and I think the best suggestions are still the same: (1) Do your best to cope, and stay sane, assuming that your heart will calm down as it "remodels" -- i.e., as it recovers from its OHS trauma AND gets used to its new parts, that translate strong contractions into BIG BEATS, while the old valve turned strong contractions into inefficiency; and (2) Try every trick in the book to pay less attention to the sound (and feeling) and hear it less.

That second thing is like "winning the mental game" when you have chronic pain, or tinnitus (my new thing) or any other persistent nuisance.

If it's any consolation, my heart spent a month or so "beating out of my chest" with its new TISSUE valve, so your suffering may not be 100% "your own @#$% fault" for choosing a mech valve. As I said in response to one of your earlier calls for help,

After getting my new pig AVR, I posted that my heart was "pounding out of my chest" so loudly that if I'd gotten a mechanical valve, I probably would have blamed it for making all that racket! For a while I couldn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time, and many times when I woke with a start, I could still remember the feeling that a baseball-bat-in-the-throat heartbeat had woken me up!

At 7 weeks post-op, I'm still way more aware of my heart-beat than I was last year -- and only PARTLY because I'm wearing a pulse-rate monitor! -- but I've almost completely lost that "pounding out of my chest" feeling. And it's been a while since I woke up with the feeling that a loud heartbeat woke me up. (I THINK most of the difference is cardiac, rather than psychological.) That's no guarantee that you'll feel the same way in a week (at 7 weeks), of course, but it suggests that part of the problem does TEND to resolve with time.

The "every trick in the book" to make it SEEM quieter and more normal while it isn't, include distractions and competing concentration of all kinds, competing sounds (music, etc.) and noises (white-noise machines, etc.), anti-anxiety therapy and meds, meditation, a glass of wine, a hot bath, some serious snuggling, etc., etc.

This too shall pass. . . Hang in there!

 

[neil]

enudely, i have a tissue valve and i had loud thumping for a few month, hopefully it will get better

 

[OldManEmu]

I can't comment on the sound as I have a tissue valve, however I experienced bouts of pounding heart beat for the first 2-3 months post surgery until the beta blockers slowed my heart allowing it to remodel to the new normal. When it pounded which would last from a few beats to 15 minutes at a time, I could feel it in the whole chest, neck and ears, a very strange sensation.

 

[Guest]

I have to keep reminding myself that I would'nt be alive right now and be patient with my heart while I get used to the mechanical valve. Smile, it could be worse.

 

[Smax]

I had an AVR (mechanical) and aortic repair (dacron graft) 5 years ago and I was as distraught about the sound and feeling as you seem to be. I told the surgeon that I could feel and hear my heart and his reply was that I was supposed to. I didn't feel or hear it before the surgery so I was convinced that he didn't put my heart back exactly where he found it. Well, it has gotten better and did within the first few months. I learned to go to sleep on my back as the sound is barely noticeable then. I used music for relaxation and distraction. There is some wonderful harp music that is especially for healing and is good for distraction.

 

[jockcraig]

I'm 10 weeks postop and also struggled with the ticking. At times it even seemed creepy. Oddly enough, as recovery has progressed, my ticking has become somewhat reassuring - a reminder of it all and that I am still alive - still ticking.

 

[ALCapshaw2]

Not that I want to steal Enudely's thunder, but does that sensation go away for people who experience it post surgery? I could deal with the clicking, but water-hammer sounds like hell on earth.

Duff -

I don't recall reading any follow0up reports. I believe there were some University Professors in California who were going to measure and model the dynamics of his valve / graft combo but I don't recall reading any followup posts (but then I don't read everything that is posted either). Do a VR Search for water-hammer (with and/or without hyphen) and you should be able to find the posts and other responders, then look at other postings by those members. Let us know what you find.

 

[AJB]

I am 7 months post op. I recieved a on-x mitral valve and was told by my surgeoon thatit was a very quiet valve. However, The first reall thing I remember in icu was the ticking in my ear and the fact that I was asking everyone what is that ticking noise. I use to hear it all the time but it has gotten better and I do hear it less. some days I hear it all the time an dother days not at all. I can shift my head or sit up stright and it will usually disaper. But at night whn I try to sleep it is always there in the back ground a faint ticking like aold timex watch. I don't know hoe i got through the first few weeks or months even but I did and time goes on you do and will get use to it. I know find myself feeling the oppisist if I do not hear it for a few days I freak out I realize as long as I can hear it Iam still alive! Everyone will get to use to in time but it does all but drive you crazy in the first few weeks. Just try to relax and adjust your head or shoulders maybe sit up or move side to side you can usually make it go away by moving your position. I hope you find peace with your new valve has I have. It is a long road but you will get there!