{"id":941,"date":"2009-09-30T09:32:34","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T14:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/09\/30\/problems-sleeping-after-heart-surgery\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T14:10:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T19:10:37","slug":"problems-sleeping-after-heart-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/09\/30\/problems-sleeping-after-heart-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Problems Sleeping After Heart Valve Surgery?&#8221; Asks Jenny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just received a great question from Jenny about sleep after heart valve surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny writes, &#8220;Adam, I had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/mitral-valve-replacement-surgery.php\">mitral valve replacement<\/a> seven days ago for regurgitation. I&#8217;m struggling a bit as I deal with the some of the post-operative challenges you address in your book. I&#8217;m really having an issue getting a good night of sleep. Sleeping at the hospital was tough enough. But, it&#8217;s gotten worse since I came home. I feel like a Zombie. And, the night sweats continue. Is this common? Thanks, Jenny&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21802\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/sleepwalking-night.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"314\" \/><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, I have spoke many patients &#8211; especially tummy sleepers &#8211; that have expressed several sleep problems following heart valve surgery. Some of those problems include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Inconsistent sleep, waking up often<\/li>\n<li>Insomnia<\/li>\n<li>Night sweats<\/li>\n<li>Discomfort getting in and out of bed<\/li>\n<li>Heart pounding noises<\/li>\n<li>Mechanical valve replacement clicking<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, some patients may have an adverse reaction to medication intended to enhance sleep. Personally, I had a very, very, very strange reaction to Ambien. One night, after taking a 10mg Ambien pill, Robyn (my wife) found me sleepwalking through our house. When Robyn approached me, I responded to her as if I was a character in a book that I was reading. When I woke up the next morning, I had no memory of the episode. Needless to say, that was the last time I took Ambien.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/09\/19\/recliners-beds-after-heart-valve-surgery\/\">Patient Tip: Using Recliners and Electric Chairs After Heart Valve Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2007\/02\/28\/best-position-for-sleeping-after-open-heart-surgery\/\">Best Position for Sleeping After Heart Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2010\/06\/29\/stomach-sleeping-tummy-heart-surgery\/\">When Can I Sleep On My Tummy After Heart Surgery?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope this helps Jenny (and perhaps you) learn more about sleep after heart surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recovery"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42005,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/42005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}