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Just another voice to add credence to the feeling that surgery, while necessary for severe stenosis and other conditions, is not an easy road and the recovery is difficult. My surgery for AVR and hemiarch replacement was last June (2013) and I'm back to riding, skiing and playing squash but my...

Cliff, Your LV doesn't appear dilated or hypertrophic which may be why your cardiologist is using 55 mm as the threshold for surgery, but I would push to have the docs track down the cause of your symptoms. For the 35 years they monitored my BAV before surgery they told me the thresholds were...

Interesting to hear so many people had the auras come back after surgery. I had pretty much written off migraines in my late 40s having had them since I was about 14. In my 40s I got them very infrequently and they were only ever auras without pain, but right after the surgery they came back...

I had several mystery symptoms - visual disturbances like a migraine aura, even one that felt like tightness in the chest (turns out to be a pinched nerve in my neck that's probably unrelated) - after surgery for a few months. When I asked my cardiologist about them, he said, "look, you've been...

Shannon, I went into surgery in good shape - riding 25 to 60 miles 4 or 5 times a week - and everyone told me I'd do great in recovery. I did do great, but great wasn't what I thought it was. I think it's important to be clear to yourself that this is a major surgery so a quick recovery is...

I watched the new season of Arrested Development and then House of Cards right after surgery, but I realized after watching them that I had very little recollection of them due to the anesthesia and my general fatigue. The great part about that was that I watched them a second time several...

Cliff, My case was very similar to yours except that I wasn't experiencing quite as clear symptoms. What I was experiencing was my times on bike races going steadily up over about 5 years. My aneurysm when they last measured it was around 5 cm and my left ventricle had started to...

That's similar to what happened with my heart, though I had some hypertrophy. Also, my lv was dilated at 6.8cm. It went down to 5.6cm a month and a half after surgery, but that caused my hypertrophy to worsen. It's like you have a balloon that's blown up to its limit. The walls of the...

An echo can tell to what extent your heart is remodeling. It shows how hypertrophic your ventricle is and can determine ejection fraction. It seems that there are no simple standards for use of BBs post operatively but it also seems that the decision of how long to stay on them depends on...

I think there can be a benefit to the heart by staying on BBs while it's reverse remodeling. My cardiologist explained to me that it's common to have high blood pressure just after valve replacement because the ventricle is still pumping hard as if the valve were still stenotic. I think part...

Otto, I was riding 4 or 5 times a week prior to my surgery last June. In August I rode 25 miles slowly and by October was up to about 40 miles in a single ride. I was on Metoprolol (100 mg) until early December and it took about a month or so for my heart rate to stabilize after I stopped...

I'm now going on 2 months off the beta blocker and 8 months post surgery. My HR is back to a resting pulse around 60 and I can get it up to the high 160s during exercise. It took several weeks after I stopped the BB for my heart rate to settle into a more normal pattern. At first it would...

Ive been off the beta blocker now for a few weeks and my exercise tolerance seems to be improving a little bit at a time. The remaining effect is that I'm very sensitive to cold. My extremities get ice cold easily when biking or skiing. I'm assuming this will go away over time. I'm only on...

I'm 52 and had avr for a bicuspid aortic valve in early June. I got back on the bike two months after surgery. Before surgery I was very active and rode about 3 to 5 times a week. I was pretty religious about walking and doing as much as I could to stay active in the two months before I was...

My cardologist and my surgeon both said to continue being active before surgery. I decided on my own to scale back my four or five two or three hour rides a week. I didn't so much reduce the time as the intensity. Nevertheless when the surgeon got my chest cracked three months after the echo...

My resting pulse has always been in the 50s, but before the operation it was in the 80s (maybe some anxiety there). Working out I generally max out at about 160, but now I'm having trouble getting it above 110 due to my metoprolol. My resting pulse is in the 50s again now. I had AVR and...

Anyone know of any good post op upper body exercises so my arms don't totally atrophy? I've been doing supported curls with 5 lb weights - about 40 a side, supported wrist curls (the same) and reverse wrist curls. I can't come up with a safe tricep exercise though since the ones I usually do...

Just an update - I've been home for 11 days now and I'm walking three or four times a day for about one to two miles each day. I also borrowed a friend's Lemond stationary bike and I'm riding that 10 to 20 minutes a day. Sleeping was a problem but I'm starting to get that under control...

I've now been home a week and a half after a ten day icu stay. I overdid it a couple of days ago (walked two miles) so I rested yesterday and feel a bit better today. Also haven't been sleeping well. I tried lorazepam but that didn't do it so I used triazolam last night. That did it and I...

I've been home 3 days and had surgery 12 days ago. Not sleeping great yet but my wife made me a mountain of pillows on top of a wedge pillow which helps a lot. I'm lengthening my walks by a house or so in our spread out neighborhood each day. Still a bit winded with stairs but not much pain and...