My name is Sharney I am on my husbands hotmail account because I don't have one.but here goes
When the hospital sent me home after the closure they gave a paper with instructions what to,but nothing on the paper told me how to deal with what happened yesterday.My heart started pumping like crazy,I never had high blood preasure in my life and it was 145 over 101,,my BPM was 178 and it kept going up and down,,I had to get an ambulance and even they were scared,the hospital up here has never delt with anything anything like this before and did not know what to do.so afer a while everything went back down to normal,and they sent me home,but what do I do if it happens again.Is this normal with a closure..Please let me know if this happened to any of you people,,Thank You.....Sharney
Hi Sharney, how are you doing? Any more episodes of racing heart? Also, have you felt any burning or dull pain in your chest? I had my ASD closed on 11/7/12 and had an echo 11/14/12 because I felt short of breath, burning & chest pain (nothing severe). Everything looked good on the echo. I recently had 4 nights of bad sleep and felt as though my heart was racing. I took my pulse and it seemed fine so I haven't call my doctor. I have been under stress lately so I'm blaming it on that. I have a f/u appointment with my doctor on 12/12/12. They say you shouldn't feel the device so when I get a feeling every once in a while it makes me concerned. I called the company but of course they can't give me any information on symptoms and advised me to call my doctor.
I can't say whether pain with an ASD repair is "normal", but I can tell you that I am far from pain free. There are times when I become genuinely concerned about it, and I have visited the doctor more than once to try to see if something is "wrong". They say the repair is fine and I am almost at no risk of heart attack. "Skipped" beats are not unusual and apparently should be expected. When my heartbeat gets "up", it does take time for it to go back down.
It sounds to me like you were experiencing something near or similar to atrial fibrillation. That is a serious risk and is not unheard of for ASD survivors. It took a good while after my surgery before my sensitivity to heartbeats and a tendency to suffer high heart rate went away.
I am convinced that, while ASD repairs are "routine", there is MUCH about the after affects, especially in older people, that is not scientifically tracked. Doctors have expressed almost NO interest in seeing me regularly, even tho I'm one of the people that they say should have died much earlier in life - why are they not interested in why I'm pretty much perfectly healthy after waiting FAR too long to be repaired?
Hi! I had episodes like these before that my cardio prescribed a beta-blocker just to control the rhythm as my heart was still recovering. From what I understand, arrythmia is a very common complication of ANY heart procedure. It could be a transient episode like those annoying “skipped beats” (aka SVT, PVC) or a chronic problem like atrial fibrillation. The heart tissue is irritated from the procedure therefore the crazy beats. I know the feeling and I hate it.
How long do we have to stay on the pills for,I am on warfarin which I hate taken,it scares me.I take diltiazem and propafenone,I am starting to feel like a walking drug store..Christmas is coming New years and my anniversay,I am not even allowed to have a glass of wine or anything.I am not drinking,,but it is nice to have a few glasses of wine.I wonder how long more we have to take these pills,or are they a forever thing..
How long you are on medication is probably very subjective. I was off of EVERYTHING within a year.
George said:
How long do we have to stay on the pills for,I am on warfarin which I hate taken,it scares me.I take diltiazem and propafenone,I am starting to feel like a walking drug store..Christmas is coming New years and my anniversay,I am not even allowed to have a glass of wine or anything.I am not drinking,,but it is nice to have a few glasses of wine.I wonder how long more we have to take these pills,or are they a forever thing..
Thats comforting to know,,I just hate taking pills,,and when I have to swallow the warfarin it like something tells me not to,I have always followed my feeling and for some reason something tell me not to take it,but I do,,Doctors orders,Soon maybe..I was never a pill person,,I don;t even take anything for a headache,,So maybe thats why I find it hard.
By all means stick with doctors orders, especially with blood thinners like Warfarin / Coumadin. Blood clots lead to strokes, and you do NOT want that. That's why you're taking those. Those medicines are fairly standard procedures that all AMA doctors are going to stick with. I didn't take Coumadin - for whatever reason they felt my risk of blood clots was really low and only put me on aspirin, then took me off that after a year. If you have a particular reason that you feel you need to not be on a certain med, let the doc know, but stick with his decision. Some meds require tapering off to stop taking them without danger.
George said:
Thats comforting to know,,I just hate taking pills,,and when I have to swallow the warfarin it like something tells me not to,I have always followed my feeling and for some reason something tell me not to take it,but I do,,Doctors orders,Soon maybe..I was never a pill person,,I don;t even take anything for a headache,,So maybe thats why I find it hard.
Thank you for all of your responses. It's so good to hear what everyone else is experiencing. I'm also NOT a pill taker and I'm on Plavix (75mg) and baby aspirin daily for 6 months. I knew I would have to do it going into the procedure but I certainly don't like it. It addition, I'm a big wine drinker so I had to cut back considerably. I thought about giving it up for 6 months but can't do it. I have a couple glasses on the weekend and still have a couple beers once in a while. So far my guts are okay. I certainly don't want to take any more pills for the occasional racing heart so I will see how it goes until my doctor appointment next week. I haven't had a TEE since before the procedure so if symptoms keep up I will ask my doctor to perform one to make sure everything looks good. I know the echocardiogram doesn't show the full picture but they do tell me if there is any puncture or bleeding it would show on the echo. Take care all!
Sounds like you feel much more at ease now. That's good to hear. Hope all goes well...
Cherie said:
Thank you for all of your responses. It's so good to hear what everyone else is experiencing. I'm also NOT a pill taker and I'm on Plavix (75mg) and baby aspirin daily for 6 months. I knew I would have to do it going into the procedure but I certainly don't like it. It addition, I'm a big wine drinker so I had to cut back considerably. I thought about giving it up for 6 months but can't do it. I have a couple glasses on the weekend and still have a couple beers once in a while. So far my guts are okay. I certainly don't want to take any more pills for the occasional racing heart so I will see how it goes until my doctor appointment next week. I haven't had a TEE since before the procedure so if symptoms keep up I will ask my doctor to perform one to make sure everything looks good. I know the echocardiogram doesn't show the full picture but they do tell me if there is any puncture or bleeding it would show on the echo. Take care all!
They put me on warefarin instead of plavix I think it is because I don't have a drug plan,,but I do have my own bussiness so I can afford to get it..I also take asiprin,I don't even know what a TEE is,they r giving me an MRI,,so I just gotto wait and see,,how come u can have a glass of wine and I can't..I love my red wine.what kind of symptoms do u still have.I am 53 and I don't want to give up my wine now..Do u smoke,It seems I don't know what to do anymore.I have to get and echo on Jan,2..then the sergion..so then I will get the big picture of everything I hope,,I pray its all good news..Thank you for your replys,,Keep in touch..
I so know how you feel about being a walking pharmacy. At one point I was taking 9 different pills a day. I was on Plavix 75 mg a day, as well as Bystolic 2.5 mg. twice a day, Aspirin 325 mg a day along with other pills for other health reasons. At my six month post op mark I was taken off of the Plavix (yay, I had previously spent nine months on warfarin for blood clots) so I was thrilled to be done with the Plavix. My aspirin was reduced to 81 mg a day and my Bystolic was cut to 2.5mg a day which I am guessing may be for life considering when I asked at my last echo/bubble study if I could stop taking it I was told no but not told when I might be able to. But treatment is different for everyone. Ask lots of questions.
Good luck.
George said:
How long do we have to stay on the pills for,I am on warfarin which I hate taken,it scares me.I take diltiazem and propafenone,I am starting to feel like a walking drug store..Christmas is coming New years and my anniversay,I am not even allowed to have a glass of wine or anything.I am not drinking,,but it is nice to have a few glasses of wine.I wonder how long more we have to take these pills,or are they a forever thing..