Sternum won?t heal.

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I am not sure if that would help me because my is broken vertically, not horzontally. :O( The body is broken away from the manubrium in 2 different places. So I am not sure if your Talons would help in this case.
 
Warfarin has been implicated (in RARE cases) in non-healing fractures. Are you on warfarin?
 
Has anyone dicussed if a muscle flap would help the sternum heal this far out? Or have you had one during your other surgery? It must be so frustrating, especially not being able to lift your little ones. You are in my prayers.
 
My sternectomy (radical) and after my pectoral / diaphram three years ago now my chest is firm and I get stronger daily... My grand daughters are 24 and 41 lbs and we rough house and I can lift them while 100 lbs approx would be my limit on ocasion
 
noone has every mentioned anything about a muscle flap....please describe/give more information if you can explain a little so that I can bring it up at my next apt with the specialist. :O)
 
Lynlw said:
Did they try to do any muscle flaps, and wrap the muscle around your sternum to help stabilize it and help it heal? MY son didn't have a problem with his sternum not healing, but 10 days after his heart surgery he had a massive infection in and under his sternum. They had to cut out a a bit (all of the infected areas) of his sternum, the bottom third was pretty much "mush" to quote the surgeon. They used his right pec muscle to wrap around the sternum and in any holes. The fact the muscles has so much blood and oxygen is supposed to help with the healing and the muscle holds the sternum together since they couldn't use any wires. He never had any plates. Do you have a Plastic surgeon on your team? They seem to have the most experience with muscle flaps used for sternums. Here is a short article about them http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1278627-overview FWIW, Justin's sternum ended up healing well, he hasn't had any weight restrictions after the first couple months, when he finally got most of the strength back in his right arm (thats the side they took the pect muscle from) He had the surgery 3 years ago, we did have 1 scare this winter when the infection came back, but it was caught earliy enough it cleared up with antibiotics, but he came very close to surgery again (was even in preop a couple hours waiting to go to the OR) He just had his cardiolgy appt this morning and his card said his sternum feels nice and strong, no clicking.
Are you a diabetic by any chance?
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I have an Internal Medicine Specialist and a Cardiovascular Thoracic Specialist working on me, but that's it. I am not a diabetic and this is the first I have heard about muscle flaps....great to hear new ideas! Thanks a bunch. Okay, call me dumb but how the heck did you guys get a pic up for your user name? I can't figure it out. LOL
 
Kincaidm38 said:
under my settings there is no profile picture selection....strange!
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I'm not sure if this is the case, but it may have something to do with if you donated to the site or not?

Was that article about muscle flaps useful, or would you like some other ones describing them better? I have a couple I think since my son had it done when he was 19. his sternum that part of it was called "mush" by the surgeon after the debridment muscle flap surgery (3 years ago) is doing great (so far knock on wood) Justin has no lifting restrictions (besides the ones for his heart) and his cardiologist was even ok with him playing Hockey (roller hockey, just fun local thing)
 
Most things I have are for deep sternal infections, since that is what I was looking for but they use it for sternal dehiscence too
http://www.ejcts.ch/cgi/content/full/25/2/218
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20395796 is just the abstract,

Most cases as far as I know a plastic surgeon moves the actual muscle itself (I didn't realize until Justin's surgery that they were the ones specialized in that but it makes sense since they do alot of the breast reconstructive surgeries ect) He had both heart and plastic surgeon in the OR, the heart cleaned up the sternum and the infected tissue around the heart, then the plastic surgeon did the muscle flap, where they wrapped his right pec muscle (they asked before surgery and he's a Lefty so they used the right, since you have trouble moving the arm for a while)around his sternum and tucked it in all the spaces where his sternum was cut out, he closed him too (which made Justin happy a plastic surgeon was doing the closing)

Here is one where they used muscle flaps for http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/82/3/902 noninfectious sternal dehiscence which I think might be what you have?
 
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Kincaidm38 said:
I am not sure if that would help me because my is broken vertically, not horzontally. :O( The body is broken away from the manubrium in 2 different places. So I am not sure if your Talons would help in this case.
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Hi Kincaidm38,

Had my AVR and MV repair done in late May this year. My sternum was closed and sealed with Kryptonite bone cement and my bone structure was solid by the time I came out of ICU. For my OHS recovery, I really only had to deal with tissue healing and therefore had a fast and eneventful recovery of weeks.
I was the test case for K bone cement at my hospital. My surgeon was curious and game to try the cement to judge cement as an alternative to talons.

may be worth inquiring to your surgeon, search on Kryptonite, will get you all kinds of info on the net.

All the best

Gil
 
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