Heart rate when exercising post AVR

[Chuck C]

I thought my new bovine av , which is about three times as large as the calcified one it replaced, would at a minimum, allow the same good performance I had up to replacement . It appears they gave me a one time med to calm the fluctuations of BP 100 to the 150s and I have since stayed between 110 and 120. Resting is settling in about about 60 vs pre op 55. This morning I went for a near brisk 45 minute 3.5k walk on flat land and bpm held under 100. No idea what BP was but I felt super. 35 minutes on a stationary bike set low at at 40 and a limited rpm? Of 65 , was a boring breeze.I was doing 12k hard cross country walks in two hours and 28 k cross country very hilly on an vintage gt lts mountain bike in 1hour 38 minutes and felt great. Spikes in bpm were around 148. The way I felt today , getting back to those levels won’t be too hard in the near future.

That is all great news! I know that you are eager to test out your new valve, but just be careful not to push too hard too soon. There is a lot of healing that still needs to go on. The last thing that you want to do is create too much pressure before sutures have healed fully and do some damage. You have the rest of your life to push your cardio to the limits and see how much your new valve can improve your performance, which is something that a lot of folks experience.
Usually, it is around the 3 month point where your surgeon or cardiologist will give you the green light to go hard in your work outs.
With the beta-blocker, your HR and blood pressure can be misleading, when compared against your pre-surgery baseline. It lowers your heart rate and also your blood pressure. Once I went off of the beta-blocker, my resting and exercising HR was higher than pre-surgery. I was in the 52 to 58 range pre-surgery at rest, and was then in the 70s after going off the beta-blocker. It took many months to normalize. Many others have experienced this rise in HR following surgery. If you are on a beta-blocker, it will mask this increase until you go off of it.

Keep up the exercise and the updates! It's great to hear how well you're doing!

 

[Chuck C]

Resting HR is about 42, compared to mid 30s previously. Estimated VO2 max from my Garmin is 54, down from 65 a few months pre surgery. At a comfortable running pace, my HR is over 160, compared to about 145 previously.

It is normal to have a higher resting HR after surgery, once you are off of the meds to lower HR and blood pressure. That was the case for me and many others. I would say that it has been a linear decrease in my resting HR since going off of the meds. I have returned to relatively high amounts of cardio exercise, and have been doing so for about 7 months, and I would say for the past 3 months HR has seemed to be stabilized and not dropping any lower. Another way of putting this would be so say that my resting HR continued to decrease towards my pre-surgery baseline for the 8 months following my surgery. My new normal resting HR seems to be 62 to 68. I was in good physical condition before surgery, with a resting HR in the 50s. It seems that when I exercise that my HR is now about what it was pre-surgery, given similar amounts of output.

Hopefully I haven't reached my max fitness yet! Even if I have, I'm just thankful to still be alive.

I feel the same way. I don't plan to do any races or anything which would give me exact data on where I am now compared to where I was pre-surgery. I would need to push my HR above 90% max for prolonged periods of time to get this data, and I'm not planning to do that at this point. However, I would estimate that I am relatively close right now to where I was pre-surgery. And, like you, I am grateful for every day and thankful to be alive

 

[d333gs]

This is an interesting thread. I think I've had the opposite experience to most. My HR is higher post op for the same perceived exertion, even though I'm performing much slower.

Part of that is without doubt a general decrease in fitness due to lower levels of exercise. Resting HR is about 42, compared to mid 30s previously. Estimated VO2 max from my Garmin is 54, down from 65 a few months pre surgery. At a comfortable running pace, my HR is over 160, compared to about 145 previously.

That being said, I'm happy with my progress. I'm 6 months post op and can run 5km in 21 minutes. I will also be running a half marathon in early March at around 1h40 pace. Hopefully I haven't reached my max fitness yet! Even if I have, I'm just thankful to still be alive.

Resting hr at 42, ! That’s wild. I wonder if that has to do with the size of your left ventricle? But then your hr would be down in general? I will have to find an English speaking cardiologist