Posts
5
Joined
4/18/2020
Location
Wooster, OH
US
Edited Date/Time
5/12/2022 3:49pm
I had a triple bypass two weeks ago and know I need to stay off the bike for awhile. Of course the doctor, and wife, say not to think about it until spring. Live in Ohio so it’s not that unreasonable but the bike is calling to me. I’m thinking if 8 weeks after surgery heals enough to go to work and drive I should be able to ride around the yard then. Anybody else go through this?
I'd do all the rehab and conditoning as good as is humanly possible and then...ask if it's time to go ride, I'm guessing that if you're doing really, really good by then...? Well, I can't see them stopping you.
However, aren't you baring down on winter? So, if ya do it right...maybe ya fly down to FL and get to ride sooner than you think.
Good luck.
The Shop
Depending on your other health conditions that could be hindering you, and if you are on blood thinners or not, I would error on the side of caution for the first 12 weeks or so.
I found even semi-aggressive track riding to be too intense, especially if I did not warm up, because the heart cannot keep up. The new heart is denervated and your brain cannot tell it to beat faster to provide more oxygen, and it is easy to go anerobic, and then you're gassed.
What I could do was, say, 70% max trail/off road stuff, including two three-day 250 mile trips off road from Reno to Vegas (one of which is reported in the hall of fame). So I was able to ride probably another 10 years enjoyably without worrying too much if I was slowing the group down or going to have an incident out on the trails. At some point a few years ago it became apparent that it wasn't working as well, and in fact I have bailed on trying shoot the Outdoors any longer because 4-6 six miles of trucking camera gear on a hot day took a physical toll and required about a week of recovery. Being almost 64 now probably does not help. I tinker with some old bikes and continue to love the sport.
Find your comfort level. Five or so minutes of warm up will get your heart rate up slowly as it responds to chemical signals and make it easier to get to pace. Also, your max heart rate likely will be reduced. It's just harder to get to that intense effort level. Less sprint, more marathon.
I would say that your transplant team's advice likely concerns blood thinners, which are common pre-transplant. If you are continuing on Coumadin or another thinner stronger than aspirin you'd want to think this through. It is not uncommon for people on blood thinner to have fatal brain bleeds with relatively "normal" knock to the head. Apart from the bias a lot of people in the med community have, especially in transplant ("you want to ride a donorcycle?"), I think the issue comes down to what you want to do.
This was a recent article I drilled down to awhile ago about training for additional capacity. There's a fair amount of literature.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.039845
I started very soft and short outdoor cycling on the road after a month and was back on a motorbike for very cool trail riding something like three months later...
Probably could have sped up the process, but I thought that as long as the freshly sawed sternum hurt like hell whenever I sneezed, it was a bit early to go riding offroad...
Take your time.
Between the medical advice and your own feeling, you'll know when the time is right.
Pit Row
Part of getting second chance to live is actually living; with balance, and smart, not sucking your thumb and withdrawing. Be careful with covid, post transplant folks ate a specially vulnerable and not all of the therapies are available because of transplant meds. Going through that now.
Those little tugs inside your heart when they do biopsies is pretty trippy, huh? They stopped doing them for me a few years ago.
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