{"id":4050,"date":"2023-12-05T16:59:21","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T16:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=4050"},"modified":"2025-07-13T17:59:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T17:59:40","slug":"restart","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/restart\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgeon Q&#038;A: Restarting the Heart After Cardiac Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just received an important question from Nupur about restarting the heart after cardiac surgery and the progression of heart valve disease.\u00a0 Nupur wrote to me, &#8220;Hi Adam, I&#8217;ve been postponing my mitral valve repair surgery for a number of years. Now my left atrium is enlarged and I&#8217;m experiencing symptoms. I am paralyzed by the fear that my heart will not restart. How often does this happen? What do doctors do if the heart does not restart?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To answer Nupur&#8217;s question, I was very lucky to connect with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Marc-Gerdisch-Indianapolis-Indiana.php\">Dr. Marc Gerdisch<\/a>, the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Franciscan Health in Indianapolis, Indiana.\u00a0 During his career, Dr. Gerdisch has performed over 4,000 heart valve operations. In our community, Dr. Gerdisch has successfully treated over 125 patients including Justin Reddick and Janet Peterson.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mvCa1TIjP5s?si=BNkgKCkg6U7KLwpY?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Insights About Restarting the Heart After Cardiac Surgery<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Patient fear that the heart will not restart is common among patients. &#8220;It&#8217;s a perfectly legitimate question, because you&#8217;re going to have your heart stopped to have heart surgery,&#8221; states Dr. Gerdisch. &#8220;We think about all the fears that people have. They have fears of discomfort, of lack of recovery, of not being well, of a protracted stay in the hospital, and of their heart not starting.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/profileImages\/306_129_173.jpg?d=20241206\" alt=\"Dr. Marc Gerdisch\" width=\"129\" height=\"173\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Marc-Gerdisch-Indianapolis-Indiana.php\">Dr. Marc Gerdisch<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to Dr. Gerdisch, the heart always restarts.\u00a0 However, there are two potential issues that can impact normal heart function after being restarted including electrical events and the mechanical squeeze of the heart.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4063 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/electrodes-heart-restart-after-cardiac-surgery.jpg\" alt=\"Electrodes for Heart Restart After Surgery\" width=\"650\" height=\"358\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To ensure normal electrical function after the heart restarts, electrodes are placed on the surface of the heart prior to surgery. &#8220;We put little electrodes on the surface of the heart. Essentially everybody gets them and they are on the surface of the heart from the time you&#8217;re in the operating room till shortly after being in the operating room, while you&#8217;re in the hospital,&#8221; Dr. Gerdisch states. &#8220;Those little electrodes allow us to tell the heart when to beat. It will always start. The electrical event can be given or it will happen on its own. 99% of the time it happens on its own. We have those leads for those events where we can&#8217;t get the heart to deliver that signal.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Several techniques and processes have been developed to preserve the mechanical squeeze of the heart. &#8220;We&#8217;ve developed multiple methodologies for ensuring that mechanically the hearts are well preserved and that they function well, that the squeeze is good after the operation,&#8221; states Dr. Gerdisch.<\/li>\n<li>For patients, like Nupur, who have severe heart valve disease and are symptomatic, Dr. Gerdisch believes the risk of not having surgery outweighs the risk of surgery. &#8220;Now, let&#8217;s compare those risks. In your case compare to what you&#8217;re talking about, because when we look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/mitral-valve-repair-surgery.php\">mitral valve repair<\/a> the risk for an otherwise healthy person is so low that it&#8217;s almost stunning. I think you really need to be familiar with that. Recognize that, as you said, your disease is progressing, your left atrium is enlarged, you&#8217;re having symptoms. This is time to have the valve repaired,&#8221; states Dr. Gerdisch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Many Thanks to Dr. Gerdisch &amp; Franciscan Health!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of our entire patient community, many thanks to Dr. Gerdisch for sharing his clinical experience and research with our community!\u00a0 Also, many thanks to the Franciscan Health team for taking such great care of heart valve patients.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Marc-Gerdisch-Indianapolis-Indiana.php\">See 100+ Patient Testimonials for Dr. Marc Gerdisch<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/stop\/\">Stopping The Heart During Cardiac Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/pain-management\/\">New Approach to Pain Management After Heart Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the hearing impaired members of our community, I have provided a written transcript of my video interview with Dr. Gerdisch below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"cms.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"class_list":["post-4050","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4050"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5920,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4050\/revisions\/5920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}