Open-heart surgery is a common type of heart surgery performed on adults. In this survey, grafting of a healthy artery or vein takes place when there is a blockage in a coronary artery.
This allows the grafted artery to bypass the blocked artery and carry fresh blood to the heart. Open-heart surgery is traditional heart surgery. Nowadays, many new heart procedures take place with only small incisions and not wide openings of the chest.
Such surgeries are done by a heart doctor or a cardiovascular surgeon. Therefore, the term ‘open-heart surgery’ can be misleading.
When does one require an Open Heart Surgery?
One requires Open-heart surgery when he or she is suffering from coronary heart disease. Coronary heart disease occurs when the blood vessel that provides blood and oxygen to the heart muscle becomes narrow and hard. This is ordinarily known as ‘hardening of the arteries’. Hardening transpires when fatty material accumulates a plaque on the walls of the coronary arteries.
This plaque narrows the arteries making it difficult for the blood to get through. When blood does not flow properly to the heart, a heart attack happens. Performing open-heart surgery is also to:
- Repair and replace heart valves so that blood can flow easily to the heart.
- Repair damaged or abnormal areas of the heart.
- Implant medical devices that help the heartbeat properly.
- Replace a defective heart with a donated heart whose popular terminology is heart transplantation.
How Risky is an Open Heart Surgery?
It wholly depends upon your comorbidities (other health predicaments) and whatever you’re operating, but conducting a coronary artery bypass surgery is one of the most prevalent surgical procedures in India. For a moderately healthy patient, the anticipated fatality is under 1%, with low prospects of major complications as well.
This varies as you add the complexity of the surgery, valve disease, heart failure, emergency status, kidney disease, history of stroke, etc, but a cover statement of “very dangerous” is factually inexact.
If you’re needing an open-heart procedure, ask your cardiovascular surgeon. They can give you a much more definite answer and let you know which end of that spectrum you’re on.
So, who is a Heart Doctor or a Cardiovascular Surgeon?
A heart doctor or a cardiovascular surgeon is someone who has special training and skill in finding, treating and preventing diseases of the heart and blood vessels. They are able to treat conditions ranging from severe hypertension to elevated cholesterol to heart rhythm problems.
Also, they perform procedures that help both diagnose and treat many cardiac conditions. They operate on your heart and blood vessels to repair the damage caused by diseases or disorders of the cardiovascular system.
Most of the time, a diagnosis of the heart begins with a cardiologist. If the cardiologist decides that you need surgery then he/she refers you to a cardiovascular surgeon.
You May Also Read: 9 Best Cardiology Hospitals Present in India
Life After Open Heart Surgery
if you have had a heart attack earlier to the surgery, etc. Maximum people who are primarily otherwise healthful except for having coronary artery disease, will do just fine and be capable of returning to a regular and healthy lifestyle. Even people with other concerns, most do soundly well after having this life-saving operation.
In the US, heart diseases become the main reason for men, women, and other ethnic and racial groups of the country. In addition, in the US in every second 1 person dies from cardiovascular disease. About 659,000 people die due to severe heart disease in the US each year.
Apart from this, heart disease treatment cost in the US is much higher than in other courtiers. The United States charges $363 billion/ year (from 2016 to 2017) for treatments and services related to heart disease. In 2019, nearly 360,900 people died from Coronary heart disease. In addition to that, about 18.2 million adults around the age of 20 have severe CAD in the US.
According to a recent report, nearly 805,000 people are having a heart attack each year in the United States. The dangerous fact is most of them (1 out of 5) are silent. In this particular article, I’m going to talk about Open Heart Surgery and different heart diseases. Also, I’ll discuss some symptoms, risk factors, and treatments of heart diseases in the following article. So let’s start with a small introduction of Heart Disease-
Heart Disease:
‘Heart disease’ refers to different types of critical conditions related to the heart. CAD or Coronary Artery Disease is the most common type of heart disease in the US. It affects the flow of blood to the heart. Ultimately, this will cause a heart attack.
Risk factors for Heart Diseases:
Smoking, high blood pressure, and high level of cholesterol are the main risk factors for heart disease. In the US, about half of the population (47%) have at least one of these mentioned risk factors. Other medical conditions and choices of lifestyles can also become crucial risk factors for heart disease including obesity, overweight, diabetes, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, high intake of alcohol. Cardiac rehabilitation may help you in overcoming these risk factors.
[Some of you may be curious about cardiac rehabilitation right? Cardiac Rehabilitation is a significant program for anyone to recover from heart failure, heart attack, or serious heart surgery. It is kind of a supervised program that contains learning about healthy living, healthy eating, and taking prescribed medicine. It also includes physical activity and ways to quit smoking. Cardiac rehabilitation also helps you to find ways for relieving stress and boost up your mental health. Cardiac rehabilitation is done by a team including health care persons, physical therapists, nutrition specialists, mental health professionals, and counselors.]
Types of heart disease or cardiovascular disease:
Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in the US. So, you need to know about your heart condition to prevent it. By taking care of yourself and knowing about your disease can help you to live a more active and healthier life further. There can be various causes for cardiovascular disease, so it is important to know the basic differences between all of them.
Unnatural rhythms of heart:
Our heart beats 60 to 100 times per minute. That’s about 100,000 times a day. In case of any cardiovascular disease, your heartbeat rate gets out of rhythm. This situation is called arrhythmia. Arrhythmia or dysrhythmia can bring on an unnatural heartbeat that is either too fast or too slow.
Marfan syndrome or Aorta disease:
The aorta in our body is a large artery that leaves your heart and flows oxygen-rich blood for the rest of your body. In the case of Marfan syndrome or Aorta disease, the aorta can be widened or torn up. This leads to the risks of-
- High blood pressure
- Atherosclerosis
- Scleroderma, polycystic kidney disease, and osteogenesis imperfect, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (connective tissue disorders that can deteriorate your blood vessel walls).
- Injury
If you are suffering from any kind of aorta disease, then you’ll require a team of specialists and surgeons for treatment.
Cardiomyopathies:
Cardiomyopathy is a heart muscle disorder. It is a condition where your heart gets enlarged. People having this condition generally have a big, stiff, or thick heart that can’t pump the blood properly. This condition may get worse with time without treatments. This can lead to an abnormal rhythm of heart or heart failure. Sometimes, cardiomyopathies can be genetic but they also can occur due to metabolic disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, or infections.
Pulmonary Embolism and Deep Vein Thrombosis:
DVT or Deep Vein Thrombosis is a health condition where blood in your legs gets clotted. This can travel through your lugs by breaking loose where they block the flow of blood. This serious condition is called pulmonary embolism. It is life-threatening and requires urgent medical treatment. This is also a genetic disease that can get worse with time without treatment.
Heart Failure:
Heart failure means unusual working of the heart where your heart is not performing as it should perform. It is a very crucial health issue in the US. In the US, 6.5 million people are already suffering from this situation. It is the main cause of hospitalization of aged (above 65) people in the country. According to American Heart Association, it is assumed that this rate can be risen to 46% by 2030.
Pericarditis:
Pericarditis means the lining around your heart is swollen. This kind of condition can occur due to any kind of infection.
Rheumatic Heart Disease
This happens when a rheumatic fever damages your heart valves. This happens most commonly in children. Doctors may prescribe some tests to identify the disease or look for any heart damage such as X-rays and EKGs.
Stroke:
When blood flow in our body gets blocked by something to get into the brain it is called a stroke. In this situation, our brains can’t get any nutrients or oxygen and the cells in our brain start to die. After that, our body stops working due to certain functions in our brain.
Apart from these, different vascular diseases can also happen that can affect our circulatory system. Now, let’s look for cardiovascular disease treatments.
Treatments for cardiovascular diseases can be differing by the type of disease condition. Most of the time these treatments can include—
- Medication includes treating risk factors like cholesterol or blood pressure or breaking up blood clots.
- Changing your lifestyle includes exercise, diet, tobacco, and exercise.
- Medical treatments include a balloon or stent placed in the blood vessel, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, or heart-valve surgery.
Broken Heart Syndrome:
Broken heart syndrome is something that happens because of extreme emotional and mental pressure. It is a temporary heart condition that is mostly caused by a stressful situation, panic attack, depression, or anxiety. This situation also can happen after a serious surgery or going through some serious physical illness. Broken heart syndrome is very common in teenagers nowadays as well as aged people. If you have broken heart syndrome then you may experience sudden pain in the chest or can get a feeling of a heart attack.
Heart Disease Symptoms:
Most of the time heart diseases do not show any kind of symptoms at first. Heart disease symptoms may occur as signs of heart failure, heart attack, or arrhythmia. These symptoms may include upper back or neck pain, chest pain or discomfort, heartburn, indigestion, vomiting or nausea, upper body discomfort, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and dizziness.
Let’s discuss the most significant heart diseases and their symptoms more elaborately:
Heart Attack
Symptoms of heart attack are-
- Discomfort or pain in the chest
- Feeling light-headed, weak or faint
- Pain in back, neck, and jaw
- Pain in arms or shoulder
- Shortness of breath
Heart Inflammation
Symptoms of heart inflammation are-
- Blood in urine
- Fever and chills
- Latest or worsening heart murmurs
- Abdominal pain
- Larger spleen
- Chest pain
- Blood with cough
- Losing appetite
Heart Blockage
Symptoms of heart blockage are-
- Shortness of breath
- Irregular or slow heartbeats or palpitations
- Lightheadedness and fainting
- Difficulty in doing exercise
- Lack of blood flow
Heart Failure
Symptoms of heart failure are-
- Fatigue and weakness
- Shortness of breath
- Swelling in ankles, feet, and legs
- Reduced exercising ability
- Irregular and rapid heartbeat
- Reduced ability to exercise
- Inflammation in the belly area
Myocardial infarction symptoms
Symptoms of myocardial infarction-
- Sweating
- Nausea
- Tightness or pressure in the chest
- Vomiting
- Anxiety
- Feeling like you are going to collapse
Coronary artery disease symptoms
Symptoms of coronary artery disease are-
- Discomfort around the chest area
- Lightheadedness, nausea, weakness
- Cold sweat
- Shortness of breath
- Pain in arms or shoulder
Heart enlargement symptoms
Symptoms of heart enlargement are-
- Shortness of breath
- Breathing problems
- Dizziness
- Irregular heartbeat
- Heart palpitations
- Fluid retention
Angina symptoms
Symptoms of Angina are-
- Shortness of breath
- Nausea
- Abdominal pain
- Pain in back, neck, or jaw
- Stabbing pain in the chest area
Now, let’s discuss some treatments and surgical processes related to heart disease especially Open Heart Surgery.
Surgical procedure for congestive heart failure:
Yes! There is a surgical procedure for congestive heart failure called Coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. This is the most common surgery for coronary heart failure is bypass surgery. However, surgery is very risky for people with severe heart or other health conditions. Especially, for people with heart failure, this can be life-threatening. But, there are more new techniques with strategies nowadays that have reduced the risk factors and improved the results.
Open heart surgery:
Open heart surgery is something done in heart muscle, arteries, valves, or the aorta and other big arteries linked to the heart. The term “Open Heart Surgery” means that you are connected with a bypass pump or a heart-lung bypass machine during surgery. The main risk factors during this surgery are your heart can stop working while you are linked with the machine or the machine does not work on your lungs. Generally, there are a few types of Open Heart Surgery such as heart transplant, CABG (bypass surgery), valve replacement.
Recovering from open-heart surgery
Open Heart surgery healing time can take more than two or three months. During this time you can experience both good and bad things. You may feel tired, anxious, depressed and so more. Also, you can see some improvements in your condition which will give you some relief.
Lastly, it is observed that patient who has gone through a cardiac surgical procedure or open-heart surgery tends to lose 10-15 lbs. This happens in the initial 4-8 weeks of post-surgery. Weight loss after open-heart surgery is very common. This phase can include loss of appetite, certain hormones, nausea and so more. These conditions can burn all your energy and you can feel tired most of the time even while laying in bed. With that, you can experience shortness of breath after open-heart surgery. After open-heart surgery, atelectasis is the principal common reason for dyspnea, followed by pneumonia and pleural effusion. Patients who have dyspnea need longer ICU stays rather than any other patients.
So, this is all for now. I hope you get a lot of information about heart disease and heart surgeries. One last thing I would like to tell you is that, keep taking care of your heart because it is important. Eat healthy because nowadays most heart problems are seemed to be caused by obesity and heavyweight. You may seem totally fine one minute and in another minute you are laying down holding your chest having a heart attack. People are dying because of it. So stop taking your life casually. Stop smoking, because it is another reason for cancer and other serious heart diseases. If you have any kind of symptoms related to heart disease, then seek help from a doctor without wasting any time. Early diagnosis can help you reduce the risk factors. Exercise daily and stay fit.
In conclusion, if you have any thoughts on the following topic, please share them with me. I’ll be glad to include that in my next article. One last thing, the data, and information given in the following article is based on different research paper and reports on the internet. So, if you have any kind of issue with the information you also can share it with me. I will try to come up with more new and helpful information for you in my next article. Till then stay healthy and stay fit.