Pump Head

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L

lbecker

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 18, 2008
Messages
133
Location
CA
I just spoke to someone who had their mitral valve replaced about
2 months ago. They are not sleeping, she says she can go up to
3 days and not sleep. The doctor called it pump head, and says
it is due to being on the heart and lung machine, and can last up to 6 months. What info. can anyone give me about this? Is this common and is there
anything that can be done about it? Laura
 
Laura... I am exactly 1 month post op and have a hard time sleeping... not because of the pain but I just can't sleep. I can stay awake all day long and still not be able to sleep at night. Before the surgery I did all my research and Pumphead was one of the things I braced myself for. I still can't even listen to my Ipod and it took about 2 weeks for me to be able to even watch TV. It's all part of the process unfortunately.
 
Pump head is very common, I am sure you will receive a lot of feedback about this topic! I had to take a sleeping pill for a little while in the beginning, and even then I could only sleep for 3-4 hrs. at a time. I eventually worked my way up to 5, then 6, and so on, but it seemed to take a while. There are other fun things associated with pump head, such as memory loss or forgetfulness, but it all fades eventually.
 
halleyg said:
Pump head is very common, I am sure you will receive a lot of feedback about this topic! I had to take a sleeping pill for a little while in the beginning, and even then I could only sleep for 3-4 hrs. at a time. I eventually worked my way up to 5, then 6, and so on, but it seemed to take a while. There are other fun things associated with pump head, such as memory loss or forgetfulness, but it all fades eventually.
Click to expand...

I am still blaming it almost four years one! It covers a multitude of 'senior type moments' as far as I am concerned - better than just admitting that I am getting old a forgetful. :)
 
Many / most OHS patients have 'sleep issues' following surgery and sleep in 2 or 3 hour shifts. NAPS are GREAT!

I had not associated sleep disturbance with "pump head" effects, thinking that they were more cognitive / short term memory related.

Two factors seem to be the Quality of the Filters used by the Hospital, and the speed at which the body is re-heated following surgery. Adding only a few minutes to the 'warm-up' time (i.e. making it more gradual) seems to help reduce those effects.

There have been many posts / threads on Pump Head and Sleep Disturbances (as separate topics) on VR.com Do a Search (see the Blue Line above) for those topics to find those threads.

There was a recent thread with subject line something like "Cause for Pumphead found" which pointed to some chemical associated with plastic tubing as an additional possible culprit.

'AL Capshaw'
 
I am up all night long. I have finally been given some pills to help me sleep. If I don't take the pill by 7 however then I want to sleep all day the next day. I am totally wiped out. If it weren't for cardiac rehab I'd sleep all day and would probably be going crazy. The cardiac rehab is keeping me going.
 
I had issues with sleeping up to about 5 wks post-op, but it was as far as I know due to irregular napping messing up my sleep schedule, plus some drowsy effects of my medications. Once I got my sleeping schedule back to normal hours, avoiding long naps, and got off most of my meds, my sleeping has been fairly normal.

Now what might have been from "pump head" was the odd dream-like flashbacks I would have out of nowhere, usually when I was tired from walking or near bed time. Usually your thoughts go from A to B to C, where A reminds you of B which remind of C, and so on. But these weird thoughts would be completely discontiguous, where I would go from A to B to Z and then to M and then to P and so on, and be completely disoriented for several minutes. The images I'd have seemed to be flashbacks of recent dreams I've had, or so it would seem. It was a bit uncomfortable to lose control of my thought patterns but I'd fight it by walking around and trying to find something to focus my thoughts on. Anyway, all that went away around the 5th week too, so it might be from lack of sleep plus the meds.
 
Bill, I had the EXACT same thing! I have never heard of anyone else having the same experience and couldn't even explain it very well, but you said it perfectly. It used to drive me crazy, I would think I was losing control of my thoughts as well, and have the dreams coming to me from nowhere. I do still have it, but very, very rarely, and only if I let myself get overtired or dehydrated; it's not nearly to the same extreme as it was. In the beginning I would panic about it, but then I learned to breathe deeply and fully, drink some water and relax and it would pass. Anyhow, nice to know I'm not nuts. :)
 
Appreciate each of you sharing what you have experienced or have info on. It helps
me for future and I will share it with the lady to was telling about her sleep issues. I've
recommended she come on line here, but guess maybe she isn't into computer
related interaction, or at least she hasn't seemed to inquire about this forum. If anyone
else has any additional info it is appreciated. I will check in again about the search
you mentioned Al. Laura
 
I sleep like a baby but after three years I still forget why I walked in to rooms .... If it were not for computer reminders and post-it notes I would be screwed:rolleyes:
 
I had sleep issues for a long, long time and in fact still use a sleep aid. Sleep well now with that little bit of help.

Never heard of sleeplessness being related to pumphead, though. Thought that was about forgetfulness....but I dunno, I forget. :D
 
Yeah pump head really messed with my memory especially my short term side. the other thing it did was make me "fuzzy" for about 12 months. my cardio said that if would last around 6-12 months, then one day it would just disappear and he was right. one day i woke up clear as a bell. still with the short term memory diff. but have learned to communicate with ideas maybe not the exact word. family is great with charades.
:D
 
Resqrn said:
Yeah pump head really messed with my memory especially my short term side. the other thing it did was make me "fuzzy" for about 12 months. my cardio said that if would last around 6-12 months, then one day it would just disappear and he was right. one day i woke up clear as a bell. still with the short term memory diff. but have learned to communicate with ideas maybe not the exact word. family is great with charades.
:D
Click to expand...

Gosh,I hope thats true. I am 9 months out now so that gives me hope. I think folks are getting tired of me interrupting them so I can get my thought out before its lost in space. My friends play the word game too.
 
My 79 yo mom is 3 weeks post-op for AVR & 2 bypasses and this explains a lot - she's lost all depth perception, taste, hearing has deteriorated significantly and her mental processing seems to have declined by about 70% - short term memory is gone. We are hoping it's temporary - lots of trauma, anesthesia and pain meds to recover from - her cardiologist told us about the heart lung machine syndrome. But it beats the alternative - she' is still with us. ;o)
 
I am 7 weeks post op today and still have a few side effects of it. Coordination, memory, etc.
 
Laura, it is good to be prepared for how the surgery might affect you later,and it is good also to remember we all heal differently. Let's hope you are among the lucky ones who recovery will be very smooth.

I personally took sleeping pills before the surgery and continued them for three weeks after the surgery...mostly to sleep quickly before any thoughts hover over my head at night.

Good luck...your time is getting closer and closer.
 
My son is more than two years out from his last surgery. He has had problems sleeping ever since his first surgery. I just got him some melatonin a month or so ago and it seems to be helping him. At his age, I have really discouraged sleeping pills since hopefully he has a long life yet to deal with it.
 
we have discussed pumphead for years here in VR. If you do a search on 'pumphead' (above), you will find lots of information about it, including an article written by a cardiologist.
 
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