What to expect?

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cinconinos

Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2015
Messages
12
Location
RVA
After my check-UP yesterday with my cardiologist he is sending me to cardiac rehab. I'm excited but not sure what to expect. I was not fit our in shape before surgery, and despite a 30+ pound weight loss I'm not fit still. So what do you do there? What kind of clothing should I wear? How long does it last? Thanks ahead of time for your answers!
 
I went to orientation for cardiac rehab 5 days ago. They will hook me to a Holter monitor, which will record my BP, pulse, etc., as I work with different machines including the treadmill, stationary bike, and rowing machine. I will wear comfortable clothes and sneakers. Monitoring will help the staff determine at what level I should be exercising. I'm not very fit either and am about 20 lbs. overweight. I smoked for 44 years and quit only in March. I'm also excited about starting in two weeks. My insurance will pay for 36 sessions, each lasting an hour.

Let us know how it's working out.
 
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Honey bunny pretty much summed it up exactly. I just finished my rehab last week. Although I did what they called a short program at 18 sessions. The full program is 36 sessions but at 3 a week that's 3 months! I had to return to work but I'm feeling pretty good. Still get tired sometimes. Rehabs a good environment. At 45 I was much younger than most folks at my center. Most were there for heart attack recovery or blockages, but I ran into a few other surgical patients, which I loved to talk to. It was great to meet others who knew what recovering from open heart surgery was like and to be able to compare stories. Some of the older and retired patients it seemed like it was a social event, overall a very positive environment. Just don't let anyone push you beyond what your comfortable doing. Always speak up if anything bothers you to do, they will have you in a safe place the whole time but communicate openly.
 
I did the standard 36-session cardiac rehab, but I wasn't well enough to do it until I was 3 months out from surgery. I was 63, and had been a regular "gym rat" for decades. I still started from ground zero. At first, I could only walk slowly on a treadmill. The rehab team was wonderful. They kept a careful watch on all of us, and helped me to push at 110% of what patients normally could do. By the final week, I was back to jogging and felt great (compared to how I felt at the start - I was still recovering, too).

Rehab was, to me, a very important part of the program. You will get out of it exactly what you put into it. I saw patients who had the attitude that "this is all too hard for me." They didn't improve very much over the months. I was the "bring it on" guy. If they asked "do you think you can to this?" I would say "yeah - and then some." We had fun, and I saw really encouraging improvements all through the program. Don't be afraid - you are being monitored very carefully. Push as hard as you think you can, then just a bit harder. They will stop you if anything gets out of control. The harder you push, the more you will gain from it. But no matter how you do it, plan to enjoy it. For me, it was just another day at the gym. I did rehab 3 days a week, and the other 2 days I did the same routine at my regular fitness center. Now, at 4 1/2 years out, nobody can ever believe that I've had all the heart procedures that I went through. I feel really good, too.
 
My perspective here is a lot different as I was quite fit and had my surgery at age 32. I think there's a big range in the quality of care you get at rehab. My center was severely underfunded and the focus was very much oriented towards an older patient. This makes sense statistically, but it was a bit frustrating for me. One thing that remains the same no matter how old you are is that the goal here is eliminate the fear of exercising. As much as the program is about raising your cardiovascular fitness, its also about raising your confidence and self esteem that its ok to move, and ok to get your heart rate up. I wish you the best of luck.
 
I was very fit prior to surgery too (even though I was already 60). My cardiologist didn't think the rehab sessions at my local hospital would be suitable for me as they were geared towards getting unfit patients fit, and most of those patients would have been post heart attack and much older. So I had several sessions of one to one cardiac rehab with a cardiac nurse who also, incidentally, did ironman. First of all he did a thorough check of my fitness and my heart - even let me listen to my heart through his stethoscope - wished I'd heard it before AVR ! I got a heart rate monitor to monitor if I was bringing my heart rate up high enough and recovering quickly enough. He tailored a cardiac rehab programme for me, and when my foot was damaged after a couple of sessions due to an old injury, he changed the rehab programme to one which mostly involved weight lifting which I loved. As it was one to one it was too expensive to keep having sessions with the rehab nurse but he gave me all the info I needed to carry on at home - I already had a good set of weights and just needed to buy an EZ bar. I've never lacked motivation as I've really enjoyed it and make it still a part of my exercise programme - basically high intensity interval training for the heart :)
 
Wow, Anne - I wish I had the opportunity to work with a trainer who knew both training and cardiac recovery issues. I checked at my fitness center and although they said that they had trained several past heart attack and/or bypass patients, none of those patients wanted to push as hard as I did. So, I went with the cardiac rehab and filled in the off-days with my own workouts, then kept up with it after the end of rehab.

I do agree with dangerousmotto in that one of the most important lessons we learn in rehab is that we cannot "break" our bodies by using them. The supervised activity is aimed at raising patient confidence as well as raising fitness levels. We're all different, but some of us just need one more than the other.
 
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