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Question:
Is it normal to hear my heart beat after having an aortic valve replacement?
I had Bovine aortic valve [replacement] and a graft to repair aortic aneurysm in January of this year. Since then, I have been hearing my heart beat in my ears and feel it beating in my chest about 70% of the time. Is this a normal side effect and what can I do to reduce the sound in my ears and pounding in my chest?
submitted by Daniel from Seattle, Washington on 11/8/09
Answer:
by Texas Heart Institute cardiovascular surgeon, William E. Cohn, MD
Hi Daniel. You are not alone! Many people experience this very thing after heart surgery. The real question should be "Why don't most people who haven't had heart surgery hear their heart beating all the time?" If you think about it, the heart lurches violently with each beat, 35 million times each year. If we put our ear to someone else's chest, we can easily hear and feel their heart beat. It turns out that your body learns to filter out, or ignore, the sensory input from the beating heart. The same nerve endings get stimulated 35 million times each year, and your body learns to block it out. After surgery, however, the tissues in your chest have shifted slightly, and the heart is now next to new sensory nerves that haven't been programmed yet. The good news is, after some time, maybe a few years, your brain will once again learn to block out your heart. There is probably an interesting metaphor there, don't you think?
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Updated November 2009
