Driving After Heart Surgery

October 7th, 2007

A great question just came in specific to heart surgery recovery and healing.

The question reads, “When can I drive after heart surgery?”

Unfortunately, the question is a little difficult to answer.

“Why?” you are wondering.

Well… There are two reasons.

First, there are several are several different types heart sugery. Some heart surgeries require median sternotomy and heart bypass. Others are noninvasive heary surgeries that use robotics and/or catheter based technologies.

That said, there will be significant variance among patient healing following the invasive versus non-invasive surgical approaches.

The second reason the question, “When can I drive after heart surgery?” is difficult to answer is that recovering from heart surgery is a personal experience with different healing rates. So, everybody will recover at a different rate.

If you are interested, here is an incredibly great quote from Kathy Benson, a former heart surgery patient, about heart surgery recovery.

In my opinion, this is one of the hardest things for patients and caregivers to understand. That is why I am always am a little bit hesitant in providing specific time-lines for heart surgery recovery – like driving after heart surgery, returning to work or even having sex after heart surgery.

Rather, I prefer to use my research to illustrate ranges (in weeks) and suggest detailed, heart surgery recovery milestone development.

These milestones and recovery ranges are very helpful for keeping the patient’s recovery on track.

Keep on tickin!

About The Author: Adam Pick is a double, heart valve surgery patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. This unique book integrates clinical research with the personal experiences of 135 former patients to help future patients and their caregivers better understand the problems, the opportunities and the realities of heart valve surgery. To learn more about Adam and his heart valve surgery book, click here.