Heart Bypass Surgery

It's been a while since I posted but based on some of the comments that are posted, I thought several of you might be interested in my husband's experience. He had a quad bypass on Sep 1, 2005. He was just 47 yrs old and in good physical shape. He had a tremendous amount of pain in his chest and numbness. Some of it was related to that mammary artery and some was also related to the insertion of all of the tubes. I've been told they have to cut through nerves and the muscle wall for those as well. The discharge physician from the hospital made my husband feel that he should start becoming less dependent on his pain meds. So, he started to cut back as soon as he got home. Big mistake! I ended up taking him to the ER 2 nights later. He experienced sharp, piercing pain in his lower chest/side. This made him very uptight and nervous, which in turn caused more pain. I had him doing childbirth breathing exercises on the way to the ER to help him relax (it did help). They ended up putting him on a morphine drip for a couple of hours to relax him and rid him of the pain. That doctor immediately gave him a script for adivan(?) to help him relax and reduce his anxiety. He also told him to go back to his regular schedule of pain meds that he was on in the hospital. We had spoken with his primary care physician that night and he, along with the ER doctor, agreed that he should get another script for the pain meds as well. He had to have that script refilled several more times after that but each time it got later and later. Within a week or so of discharge he was able to drop to 1 pill every 4-6 hours and after 4-6 weeks, he was down to less than 1-2 per day. After that, it was only every so often (like after sneezing or having a coughing fit.) But he still took the Percocet when he needed them. We have a great primary care physician who has been very supportive and attentive. My husband still takes Xanex (?) for anxiety as well - only on occasion (we have 3 sons, 12 yrs and older who tend to raise both of our anxiety levels at times!) As far as sleeping goes, he could not sleep in our bed for at least 2-3 weeks after surgery. He slept in the recliner (both in the hospital and at home.) I ended up buying him a pillow wedge and he used that for a few weeks after that. I also bought one of those memory foam pads for the top of the mattress. That helped too. Now he sleeps like a baby . . . better than he has in years. No more indigestion, no more heavy chest, even no more snoring! Good luck to you all and hang in there. It does get better. After 6 months, he is finally starting to feel better than he did before he even knew he had anything wrong with his arteries!