http://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/heart-surgery-blog/2008/09/05/dresslers-syndrome-complication-after-aortic-valve-replacement/#comment-10609 Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:20:33 +0000 http://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/heart-surgery-blog/2008/09/05/dresslers-syndrome-complication-after-aortic-valve-replacement/#comment-10609 I recently had an aortic valve replacement and worked hard to follow all the directions using the spirometer and such, but kept feeling as though my chest was filling up on the inside. The medical team was not responsive to to my concerns with the doctors barking at me that all I had to do was walk more and use the spirometer more. However about 5 days after the surgery, I awoke to be in severe respiratory distress. They finally called in a pulmonologist and he diagnosed Dressler's syndrome. The fluid buildup was not at the surgery site, nor in the pericardium, but in the pleural cavity around my left lung (pleural effusion). Compacting it to the point where it was totally collapsed and unable to take in air. They ended up draining almost a full liter of blood out of the cavity before the lung self inflated and I was able to cough and breath again. The medical team was then very chagrined to have to admit it missed a very uncommon, but not unheard of condition with heart patients. I recently had an aortic valve replacement and worked hard to follow all the directions using the spirometer and such, but kept feeling as though my chest was filling up on the inside. The medical team was not responsive to to my concerns with the doctors barking at me that all I had to do was walk more and use the spirometer more. However about 5 days after the surgery, I awoke to be in severe respiratory distress. They finally called in a pulmonologist and he diagnosed Dressler’s syndrome. The fluid buildup was not at the surgery site, nor in the pericardium, but in the pleural cavity around my left lung (pleural effusion). Compacting it to the point where it was totally collapsed and unable to take in air. They ended up draining almost a full liter of blood out of the cavity before the lung self inflated and I was able to cough and breath again. The medical team was then very chagrined to have to admit it missed a very uncommon, but not unheard of condition with heart patients.

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