Accelerated Heart Rate - Anyone Else?

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johnfreeman62

johnfreeman62

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 22, 2008
Messages
52
Location
Meridian Idaho
Had aortic valve replacement and slight septal:confused: myectomy (slicing off enlarged heart muscle) November 13th. Recovery was going great but beginning 12/3 I have had repeated episodes of my pulse going from about 60bpm to over 120, while resting. It is accompanied by a burning chest pain and some arrhythmia. I have had about 8 episodes in the last two weeks. I never had any such episodes prior to surgery.

My surgeon says it is normal side effect of the surgery and should gradually settle down. Just wondering if anybody else is/has experienced that.
 
Sounds like short bouts of Afib to me. It hit me about 6 weeks out and lasted for a couple days, then disappeared.
 
Yup, that could be some A-fib.
I was one week post op when I woke up in the middle of the night with a HR of 170 and the doc gave me Sotalol.
The dx was SVT and I was put on Metoprolol to calm down the HR which was kind of high during the day and freaking me out.
 
YEP, a HR of 100 to 120 in the weeks following OHS is quite common. Usually, it's a bout of Atrial Fibrilation.
Are you on Coumadin or Warfarin? If so, you are protected. If it persists longer that several hours, you may want to be medicated with an appropriate Beta Blocker to keep it 'under control' or at least not go 'too high'. Discuss this with your Cardiologist. Let us know if he yawns. :)

'AL Capshaw'
 
I know how you feel...it scares the sh*t out of you seeing the rate high (not to mention the burning chest pain). I had a mitral valve repair on 1-8-08 and have had a high HR since the operation. I have photos from the hospital showing a rate of 88 on the monitor while I'm in bed. My rate is about 100 right now as I'm sitting at my desk working. I can get it down to about 80 if I'm sitting down reading. The elevated rate was making me worry all the time....I figured that I would blow out the repair if I stayed that high, but my cardio wasn't concerned saying that it was normal after the surgery. Easy for him...he wasn't the one dealing with the elevated rate.

Cardio Rehab had me working at a max rate of 150 at the end and made me feel a lot better about my heart taking the day to day stress of 100 to 120. But the thing that made me stop worrying about the elevated rate was about a month ago I had a stress echo and hit a high HR of 177 with a sustained 170 or better for the last 2 minutes or so of the 12 minutes that I was on the treadmill. The techs wanted to stop the test because of my rate but I felt great and the cardio wasn't concerned and told them to continue with the test.

Prior to the test I was still concerned (scared) any time my rate went past 145-150 while working out.....I was always worried that I would do something to cause the repair to fail.....now I know (at least in my case) that it's no big deal. I now have a lot more faith in my cardio (and my heart)...if he tells me to not worry about something, I don't....it's a lot easier to believe him now after pushing it as far as I did.

If you have faith in your cardio, and he's never done anything to make you doubt him, believe him, it will get better in time.
 
I'm coming up on my fifth week following Mitral Valve Repair surgery. Prior to the surgery, I kept track of my vital signs to have a baseline post-op. My resting HR pre-op was in the low-50s, sometimes the high 40s when I was in really good cardio shape. Upon my return home and ever since, my HR has steadily been in the 70-85 bpm range. Still normal by most people's standards, but about 20-30 beats higher than I was accustomed to seeing. Like Ed, I was freaking out. I sought out other Docs' opinions and even posted something on MedHelp.com (which is how I found this terrific site).

Long story short, like Ed, I've come to accept that the doctors know what they're talking about and that my HR will likely be higher than normal in these weeks following surgery for many reasons (e.g., agitation of the heart's pathways, deconditioning following extensive rest and for me, a tighter valve that was used to more leeway.)

Your surgery was still not that long ago. While it may sound discouraging, I've read in many places that a full recovery can take up to several months or longer. We need to give ourselves a break and realize that we have been through some serious stuff. Please keep an eye on the possible A-Fib and let the doc know if the HR goes crazy on you. I've read and heard that A-Fib is a definite complication/side-effect of the surgery.

Best of luck. I'm proud to have joined this band of brothers and sisters.

Mike
 
So I wore a Holter device (heart monitor) for 24 hours. Of course during that period my heart never raced, though it did have significant arrythmia. I turned it in on Friday Dec 19. Of course, the doctor was gone and not returning till after Christmas. I myself was leaving on a trip. WE upped my metropolol dosage to 150mg per day and I decided to just quit checking, or even thinking about my heart. Have felt fine ever since. No racing heart and if it is skipping beats I am not noticing..haven't taken my pulse one time in about 9 days now..

Maybe the secret is to not look...t
 
johnfreeman62 said:
So I wore a Holter device (heart monitor) for 24 hours. Of course during that period my heart never raced, though it did have significant arrythmia. I turned it in on Friday Dec 19. Of course, the doctor was gone and not returning till after Christmas. I myself was leaving on a trip. WE upped my metropolol dosage to 150mg per day and I decided to just quit checking, or even thinking about my heart. Have felt fine ever since. No racing heart and if it is skipping beats I am not noticing..haven't taken my pulse one time in about 9 days now..

Maybe the secret is to not look...t
Click to expand...

I agree with all that has been posted. I still get short episodes of A-fib every so often. Your advice to yourself to "not look" too often is very good advice.
 
I had my AVR on September 17. After coming off the amiodorone, I experienced several bouts of A-Fib Flutter and SVT's. Most recently, on December 23, I had to undergo a cardioversion to restore my normal rythm. After the cardioversion, I am back on the amiodorone and have once again experienced some flutter and svt's. On the bright side, none of my recent episodes lasted more than a few minutes, in contrsts, when I required the coversion, I was in flutter for 29 hours. That was very uncomfortable emotionally. When my heart is in a normal rythm, I sleep better and feel better. When it starts beating irregularly, I get very anxious. I will be following up with my cardiologist and be tested to see if I am a candidate for an ablation.

Victor
 
Finally called for my Holter results - I guess they didn't think I really needed to know - and was told I had premature ventricular contractions, the most common and least alarming type of arrythmia. I have kept my metropolol at 125mg and have been feeling great. If it is fluttering I don't notice and haven't had any racing hearts - at least races my girlfriend didn't start.
 
Hi there John,

By the sound of it it seems that your racing HR is under control now? I think fast HR is very common after they tampered with your heart. For some reason or hearts get very irritated when someone cut and work on it!:eek:

I had a resting HR of 130+ for 3 months (even in my sleep) and at some stage my EP and Cardio was thinking of ordering CORALAN (not available in S.A. yet) and one day it just came back to it old self and my resting HR is now anything between 85-100 with loads of PAC's and PVC's (had holter ECG done again last week) and it is just one of those things that we have to live with... Irritating, but not dangerous at all. :rolleyes:

A-fib is another story and unless you kick out of it on your own (that sometimes happens) you need a bit of help because that is not good for your heart and that arrhythmia can cause embolisms to form on your new or repaired valve.

I know it is frustrating to hear this, but after 1 year everything will settle down... or so I've been told. Not there yet.

Take care!;)
 
My HR also went from the upper 50 bpms to the 90s right after my surgery, but it seems to be gradually falling back down (now in the high 60's low 70's). Good thing is all the PVCs I was having seemed to have dropped right off. There's still the odd one, but nothing like the thousands I was having each day beforehand.

Can't say I blame the poor ol' ticker for being a bit agitated after all it's been through!


A : )
 
this thread is comforting. i too was getting worried about high pulse rates. i'm 5 weeks past AVR and have pulse rates in the mid to low 90s. perhaps time and the information in this thread will calm me down a bit.
 
JohnJ said:
this thread is comforting. i too was getting worried about high pulse rates. i'm 5 weeks past AVR and have pulse rates in the mid to low 90s. perhaps time and the information in this thread will calm me down a bit.
Click to expand...

Mine's also gone from low 50s to 75-95 after mitral valve repair surgery, but I've noticed that my blood pressure is back to normal (it was a bit high before surgery).
 
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