“How do you recover after a heart transplant?”
I am a 57 year old female. I want to know how do you recover after a heart transplant?
1 Answer
That's a great question. Simplest answer is "everyone is different." There is some truth to that blanket statement. In order to provide clarity in this answer, let me give you two time stamps: 1) how long will you be in the hospital for after transplant? And 2) how long will it take for me to feel good again and "recover from transplant"?
It depends on a few factors: how sick/many co-morbidities (aka other medical problems) you have prior to transplant, did you have any other open chest surgeries, do you have a mechanical heart pump (or LVAD), did you experience a complications from the operations, and how strong your muscles and conditioning were before the transplant, or "how frail are you." These all can affect the recovery time. A typical course includes having a temporary breathing tube (intubation) and give them sedation for the surgery. If the person was physically conditioned and have strong lungs, we wake them up and try to have them breath on their own and remove the breathing tube within 24-72 hours if possible. There is also a period of time which the heart has to "wake up and stretch" because the donor heart was on ice and had no blood flow for the minutes preceding the transplant. The heart for the first few days is stiff and sometimes a little dysfunctional, which very often have people on medications such as epinephrine and milrinone/dobutamine to help the heart contract harder until the stiffness/weakness wears off. This is normal and expected for the first few days. When people go to major chest surgery, they have chest tubes to drain the extra fluid in the chest that is associated with the healing process, which also is expected and stay in for a few days. ~7-14 days, we then get a heart biopsy to make sure the body has start to reject the heart. If there is no signs of rejection, the tubes and wires have all done their job and are removed, and you are on all of the right medications, we then let people go home. This total process, if everything goes smoothly can be anywhere from 7-14 days on average.
After surgery, if you are still a little weak and wobbly on your feet (remember, you just had a major surgery), it may be advised to spend time in a rehab to build up your strength. After a few weeks to months of healing, people generally feel better than they did before transplant. Some people in a short time frame, some longer.
Hope this helps!
It depends on a few factors: how sick/many co-morbidities (aka other medical problems) you have prior to transplant, did you have any other open chest surgeries, do you have a mechanical heart pump (or LVAD), did you experience a complications from the operations, and how strong your muscles and conditioning were before the transplant, or "how frail are you." These all can affect the recovery time. A typical course includes having a temporary breathing tube (intubation) and give them sedation for the surgery. If the person was physically conditioned and have strong lungs, we wake them up and try to have them breath on their own and remove the breathing tube within 24-72 hours if possible. There is also a period of time which the heart has to "wake up and stretch" because the donor heart was on ice and had no blood flow for the minutes preceding the transplant. The heart for the first few days is stiff and sometimes a little dysfunctional, which very often have people on medications such as epinephrine and milrinone/dobutamine to help the heart contract harder until the stiffness/weakness wears off. This is normal and expected for the first few days. When people go to major chest surgery, they have chest tubes to drain the extra fluid in the chest that is associated with the healing process, which also is expected and stay in for a few days. ~7-14 days, we then get a heart biopsy to make sure the body has start to reject the heart. If there is no signs of rejection, the tubes and wires have all done their job and are removed, and you are on all of the right medications, we then let people go home. This total process, if everything goes smoothly can be anywhere from 7-14 days on average.
After surgery, if you are still a little weak and wobbly on your feet (remember, you just had a major surgery), it may be advised to spend time in a rehab to build up your strength. After a few weeks to months of healing, people generally feel better than they did before transplant. Some people in a short time frame, some longer.
Hope this helps!
