{"id":9692,"date":"2012-10-26T12:25:53","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T17:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=9692"},"modified":"2025-07-08T11:53:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T16:53:52","slug":"loud-heartbeats-after-surgery-dr-rawn-salenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2012\/10\/26\/loud-heartbeats-after-surgery-dr-rawn-salenger\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;When Will My Heart Stop Beating So Strongly After Heart Valve Replacement Surgery?&#8221; Asks Anne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just received a great question from Anne. In her note, Anne writes, &#8220;How long can a patient expect to feel their heart beating so strongly after heart valve replacement surgery?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To answer Anne&#8217;s question, I was fortunate to meet with Rawn Salenger, MD, from Towson, Maryland. Here are the highlights from our discussion. For the patients and caregivers in our community who are hearing impaired, you will find a written transcript of this video below.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7-eI8xa4Hbg?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Anne for her question <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> a special thanks to Dr. Rawn Salenger for sharing his clinical experiences with our community.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/high-heart-rates\/\">Surgeon Q&amp;A: High Heart Rates After Heart Valve Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2018\/02\/11\/cardiac-depression\/\">Cardiac Depression After Heart Surgery: Top 5 Facts<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. A written transcript of this interview is provided below:<\/p>\n<p>Adam: I\u2019m thrilled to be with Dr. Rawn Salenger who is from Towson, Maryland.\u00a0 Dr. Rawn Salenger, MD has performed successful surgery on many patients in our community including Kathleen Ryan and Gene Bove.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a question, Dr. Salenger, that comes in from Anne. She says, \u201cHow long can a patient expect to feel their heart beating so strongly after heart valve replacement surgery?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Salenger:\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s a very common question. What I tell patients is &#8212; a lot of times after surgery, especially when they go to bed at night, they may hear their heartbeat or even kind of feel it in their head. That sensation will go away after about eight to 12 weeks, sometimes much sooner.\u00a0 I think what it\u2019s from is after surgery, there\u2019s fluid around the heart. That fluid tends to amplify the sound of the heart beating and also the feeling of the heart beating.\u00a0 But, as that fluid solidifies into scar tissue, instead of amplifying the sound, that actually deadens the sound which softens the sound. Then, it should go away. One exception to that is a slightly different question that comes out occasionally for patients who get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/mechanical-prosthetic-heart-valve.php\">a mechanical heart valve<\/a>.\u00a0 They don\u2019t hear their heart beating. But, every time their heart beats, they can hear the opening and closing of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-valve-replacement.php\">the heart valve replacement<\/a>.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t happen for every patient, but it happens commonly. That doesn\u2019t mean that there is something wrong with the valve. But, it\u2019s something that, especially at night when things are quiet, patients can hear. \u00a0And usually, people get used to that. It shouldn\u2019t bother them at all.<\/p>\n<p>Adam:\u00a0 I can remember my wife could hear my heart when I was sleeping shortly after surgery. One night, she said to me, \u201cI can hear your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rawn Salenger, MD:\u00a0 And how long after surgery was that?<\/p>\n<p>Adam:\u00a0 It was about two weeks after surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Doctor Salenger:\u00a0 I think I get that question a lot &#8212; just about two weeks after surgery. I haven\u2019t heard of any patient where it has persisted.<\/p>\n<p>Adam:\u00a0 Thanks again for being with us today.\u00a0 I really appreciate it.\u00a0 Keep up all the great work that you\u2019re doing at Good Samaritan Hospital.\u00a0 And again, thanks for stopping by.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Salenger:\u00a0 Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9692","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\/9692","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=9692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42274,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9692\/revisions\/42274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}