Tiredness 9 months after surgery

[roberius]

Hi. I am new to the site because of the following. Any ideas greatly appreciated.
I had my aortic valve replaced 5/17/11 with a mechanical valve.
About in October I started to get real tired. They took blood cultures, EKG's, everything. They found nothing.
My cardiologist took me off cholesterol medicine and blood pressure medicine. The only thing I am on now is warfarin. I felt some better but still had good days and bad days of tiredness.
I have been going to the gym but lately, when I go, I get really tired and my heart feels it almost ready to burst out of my chest or it races.
Well, two weeks ago, it has come back in full force. I am tired all of the time. They took me to the emergency room but released me becuase they couldn't find anything wrong. I went to the doctor last week and he repeated the tests. All bloodwork looked fine, valve working fine. (some of my friends have told me it is all in my head). Well now I am running a fever and bloodpressure is high. I now have no energy, if I take a nap, it is about three to four hours and I still can sleep at night.
Anybody else experienced this or had this? I am at the end of my rope!

 

[markp66]

The fact that you are only 9 months post op could be a factor. Some people take over a year to fully recover and some even longer. Although 2-3 months is usually the point where people feel well and able etc it can take a long time to get back to normal and full fitness. I think it's important to keep going to the gym (if your cardio says this is ok), try and eat as healthy as possible and think positively. Did they do an echo?

It may be in your head (without you knowing it). Post surgery fatigue is very common in the first year or so.

 

[Bill B]

It may be something unrelated to your AVR and mechanical valve. If your "doctor" is a cardiologist, you may want to visit your GP instead for a more general investigation.

 

[Sarah_Louise]

Welcome to the boards
With an anesthetic it can take up to 3 months to get out of your system fully, and depending how long you where sedated for, the longer it is, but i agree with Bill B, i'd go and see your GP or a doc wh will give you a full general MOT!
Thinking of you
Love Sarah xx

 

[roberius]

I went to my general Gp and he wants me to do a sleep study. I am already on a CPAP machine and sleeping well. He did a full blood panel too and found nothing.
I am talking about really tired. Today, I slept all last night and got tired around 10:30 am. I slept until 2:3opm! I never done this! My blood pressure is still up but no fever.

 

[roberius]

Yes, they did an echo and everything looked fine.

 

[SusQ]

I'm assuming that by doing blood work they also checked for mono?

 

[Lynlw]

I'm assuming that by doing blood work they also checked for mono?

I was just going to ask that .one time we were sure justin bad BE again and were surprised it turned out he had Mono
.It stunk but much better than BE or something wrong with his heart again

 

[tobagotwo]

Ask your cardiologist about trying you on a diuretic. I had water interfering with my heart and neither he nor anyone else could find it. My ankles were fine and there was no other indication. I felt like I was in my 80s. I was always exhausted.

I asked to be taken off the beta blocker, but my BP wasn't good off of it. In order to cut down on the beta blocker, he tried a diuretic in place of half of it (HCT). In two days, I had all my energy back. Also kept my BP at much better levels.

I don't know if lightening could strike twice, but it's certainly worth asking about.

Best wishes,

 

[roberius]

I'm assuming that by doing blood work they also checked for mono?

Yes, they checked for mono, strepped throat and Thyroid. Nothing showed up.

 

[catwoman]

What was your condition and lifestyle pre-op?
It took me at least 8-9 months post-op before I felt consistently good. I was in bad shape pre-op, and when I returned to work, I had already gone back to showing cats, sometimes driving, sometimes flying on weekends in addition to working during the week. I wasn't going to throw in the towel just because I had had OHS.

I am sure your doctor has run the vitamin D3 test. I have had 3 diagnosed episodes of D3 deficiency since 2008, and each time I felt almost the same as pre-op and immediate post-op.

 

[roberius]

Just got a call from my cardiologist. He wants to redo ALL of my bloodwork from last Thursday, get the results and do a stress/echo/ekg on Wednesday.

 

[Sarah_Louise]

Thinking of you!
Love Sarah xxx

 

[roberius]

Well, my cardiologist has ruled out my heart and heart valve. He performed a stress test and echo and found that everything is OK. He is going to send me to a infectious blood doctor next. (He took blodd cultures from me again)
My blood pressure has been like a roller coaster. I was putting together a small aluminum antenna last night, sitting dow, and my blood pressure rose to 180/100.

 

[catwoman]

Infectious blood doctor? Perhaps you mean infectious diseases specialist?
At this point, I would also consider seeing a specialist in auto-immune disorders, if the infectious disease specialist can't find anything.

 

[Rocky]

It isn't possible to have something so invasive as OHS without the body, and the mind, reacting to it.

I had my surgery just over a year ago and I still get tired in the afternoon. I sometimes have very short cat naps, say 10 minutes, a few times a day.

And I am very active. (I was back at work just 3.5 weeks after the surgery) I can also sleep in very easily, 10 hrs, and I use to sleep about 7 hrs a night before surgery.

We have to remember that the vast majority of OHS patients where quite sick before the surgery. Add that our ages, most of us are not spring chickens anymore, and that most of us are on one to two handfuls of pills a day, I think sometimes our expectations of what we want is much more than what is possible.

We need to learn that our bodies need to recover, and that takes time. And if we push it, then we are not letting our minds recover either.

Drink some tea, read a book and have a nap. And understand that each and every time we do that, it is bonus time that except for a very significant amount of work, we would not have.

 

[bradvo]

I sure hope that this new specialist gets it figured out, I guess you can say it is good that it is not your heart being most of us don't want to have another problem after all it takes to get it fixed in the first place.

I'm currently on the the other side of what your dealing with, I was held back for a while due to shoulder pain but since getting a cortisone shot I have been bouncing off the walls with energy. I'm 56 and feel like I'm 16 again, can't believe how much I want to get done, almost can't sit still......my wife says take a Prozac or something..LOL

Crossing fingers you get this resolved soon, feeling tired all the time was my symptom before OHS, not desirable at all.

Brad

 

[lee1lpool]

Hi,

Could be A fib or flutter (irregular heartbeat) which is a seperate issue to your valve. Your symptoms of tiredness,fast heart beat are symptoms of irregular heart beat (of course recovering from OHS is to). Periodic irregular hearbeats don`t always show up on ECG scans cause they come and go....GOOD LUCK

Lee

 

[Optimus]

Yuuuuup on the fib/flutter issue. I am in what they call a flutter type pattern and will probably be for life. I am 7 mos post op, and I too feel tired regularly. (The busier I am, the better I feel, cuz my mind is actively thinking about other things ). I am on Warfarin, and vitamins...and have read it can be a symptom of either the rhythm or meds. 24 hour holter might ease your mind, but I really like what Rocky said above. I could really "wig" out if I let myself, but I try to keep a lid on it now. I've had endo twice, 20 years ago, and your feelings remind me of how I felt, however...I caught mine right away since I had a significant fever the 1st time. Maybe we do need to cut outselves some slack and taking a nap is not such a BD. I sure hope you figure it out, and feel better soon!!!

 

[ann1970]

I too am new to this site and am experiencing high blood pressure in the day and very low B.P. at night with severe tiredness.I had mitral valve surgery on may 10, 2011. I didn't start having problems with blood pressure until the past month my g.p.Dr.has me monitoring it and last week tried me on 25 mg.of Losartan a day but that has only made me dizzy and dropped my B.p. at night to 94/52 and i feel close to passing out.I sleep 10 hours a night and still don't feel rested. I am happy to find this site i don't feel alone after reading some of these helpfull and uplifting posts. I am vitamin d and b-12 deficient, i take high dose of vitamin d and b-12 daily along with low dose 81mg aspirin daily. I hope you figure out what is going on soon take care. Thanks for posting!