Frustrated

[rbl1999]

Hi, everyone.. I think I need some reassurance from all of you sympathetic people. I am almost 9 weeks post op AVR, have been doing pretty good, but the last couple days the shoulder and back pain seems to be back. I think some of it may be the cardiac rehab, but I guess I just need to know if this is normal. I was up most of the night last night, ended up taking darvocet, that helped some. Today it is still there. I had a lot of trouble with this at first but it seemed to be a lot better. I go to cardiac rehab tomorrow but am only going to do the treadmill. I did get good news from my cardiologist last week, my echo looks great so the valve is doing it's job. I think I am just feeling a bit sorry for myself!!!!! Rose

[Tom F.]

It takes time for the human body to adjust to this type of surgery. When I hit six weeks I started working out a bit too hard and hurt just about everywhere. I would suggest getting a massage, best thing in the world !

[JimL]

Be sure to talk to the cardiac rehab nurses about your pains; the nurses I had were SO helpful with whatever problems I might have.
I'm sure I wasn't sleeping through the night at 9 weeks, and I know my pains from being spread open during surgery lasted much longer, although they were never severe.

[Ross]

Talk to the rehab people and by all means, get a massage!!!! Yes it's normal and it's going to be around awhile yet. those massages work wonders!

[rbl1999]

Thanks for your quick responses, I agree, I think massage would be helpful.. I will also talk to the cardic rehab nurses, you are right , they are nice and always helpful... Hope you are all doing well. Rose

[Ambience]

People would be much more courteous if they had massages more often. Just remember, getting frustrated tenses up your already stressed muscles. Try to relax as best as you can, and also take things easy. Recovery is a slow process, stress causes muscle tension and in turn causes the sore muscles, then reciprocates back to stress. Just close your eyes and imagine that eventual day where you wake up with no neck and shoulder pain.

[Georgia]

fyi - the people at my cardiac rehab recommended taking a couple of tylenol prior to exercising. I found this most helpful.

If you're on a diuretic be sure you keep your potassium up. When I was first in cardiac rehab I forgot and went @ 3 days without a banana (or baked potato or whatever) and had massive muscle cramping. I've never forgotten again.

[mntbiker]

I haven't seen this mentioned before but it certainly contributes to the problem.

"Within days of inactivity, muscle mass, tendon strength, and bone mass typically decline, and as inactivity continues, muscle atrophy, or loss of muscle strength and size can become a problem."

You have already dealt with major surgery and your body is trying to heal and now you are also trying to build back up to where you were before the surgery.

[Cris N]

I, too, would suggest the massage. Also, exercises that strengthen the back & shoulder muscles. Without overdoing it, try squeezing your shoulder blades together - that will relieve a lot of tension in the back. When I was in rehab there were some upper body stretches that really relieved the back & shoulder muscles. Talk to the rehab people about it. The other thing that really helped me was working on my posture. Not only did it help my back & shoulders, but it also relaxed the chest muscles.

Hope you feel better soon.

Cris

[hensylee]

hope your pain is eased today. Pain is so debilitating.

Please let us know what the rehab folks said so we can have it for future reference when somebody else asks this very same question, because we know it will come up again.

Blessins.......

[ALCapshaw2]

Rose,

Is there someone there at home who could give you a massage as soon as the pain begins? My S.O. would use one of those vibrating disk massagers, going up and down the long muscles of my back when they tightened up, and the relief came in minutes. MUCH BETTER and FASTER than any pain medication.

At rehab, I put in a LOT of time on the "arm exercisers" which look like a pair of bicycle pedals with variable resistance adjustments that you can operate going both forwards and backwards. These did WONDERS for loosening up my tight back / shoulder / arm muscles. Back / shoulder / arm stretches also helped in the long term but were not nearly as effective as massage for the INTENSE muscle pains when they occurred.

It took MONTHS for the muscle spasms to finally go away and every once in a while if I sit wrong or otherwise get some pressure on the wrong spot, they can still tense up 3 years later! Again, the vibrating massager takes care of the problem almost immediately.

'AL Capshaw'

[rbl1999]

Thanks, everyone, I did talk to the cardiac rehab nurse, she also suggested massage, so I have already made an appointemnt.. Rose

[McCln]

Rose,
Sounds like you are doing quite well, not rushing things. Thats great. Keep up the good work and rehab.