I watched a webinar by this Dr on you tube. Since I'm still having pain in my sternum a month & a half after surgery (also went to ER about 2weeks ago) this had some interesting sternal closure info. I asked my surgeon about doing something different besides "bread tie" type of closure & he wouldn't consider it. Has anyone else had issues with pain in the sternal area after heart valve surgery? My chest still feels tight & I can't really take deep breaths because of this.
I had a mini-sternotomy, so I expect my experience might be different. Sternal pain was gone by 2 weeks for me, but I did have sharp pain in my ribs up to about 6 weeks, maybe as late as 7 weeks that made it hard to breath. For me, the rib pain appeared to be my intercostal muscles, which connect the ribs. The strange thing is that these rib pains did not start until about week 3. Also, they were fine during the day, but when I would lay down for a long time, like while sleeping, and then get up- bang! that was when it hit me. It was as if the muscle was cramped up and was tender to the touch. It was very painful just to breath, which makes some sense as the intercostal muscles help the chest to expand when you breath. A few minutes of slow breathing exercises and walking around seemed to get the muscles to completely relax, until the next time I would lay down for an extended period.
What was odd was that one week it would be the intercostal muscle between rib 5 and 6 and just as that would resolve, the muscle between rib 10 and 11 would act up. I believe it is likely due to the prying open of the rib cage that occurs in OHS. When the ribs are opened like that, I would imagine that something has to give and I suppose that the soft tissue connecting the ribs gets stretched pretty good, to the point of needing to do some repair work in the coming months.
The introduction in this publication has a good discussion on Post-sternotomy pain syndrome (PSPS). It sounds like post-sternotomy pain is very common in the first 2 months. In fact, they do not even consider it PSPS unless the pain has persisted for over 2 months after surgery and then the numbers of those experiencing such pain is still relatively high: " PSPS is a common problem, with an incidence of 7%–66% within 1 or 2 years after the operation, in patients undergoing thoracic surgery. "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5439996/
Another publication that I read indicated that for the vast majority the pain is gone after 4 months. It sounds like what you are experiencing is probably common, especially in the first 2 months after surgery, but I would definitely be in communication with your surgical team about it.
