Shooting after heart surgery.

No experience here. But just wanted to say I’m happy to hear you’re recovering. It may be slower than you like but progress is good.

Have you talked to your doctor or physical therapist? Not to be mean but they’d be who I’d listen to.

Do you have an implanted defibrillator? That may factor in. Hopefully not , as they are primarily sensitive to magnetic fields and such. I wore a portable temporary defib for 3 months which was easy to cycle accidentally by body motions (!) , but an implant should be more foolproof ...?

I am no doctor , but since you asked - having been through cardiac rehab myself , I'd say that by the time you are able to transport yourself to rehab , and get on the treadmill without freaking out the ekg , you are good to shoot.
If your cardiologist balks , use .22 as a bargaining chip.
Talk to your doctor. Listen to your body.
There are brighter days ahead for you. Keep your chin up.

Bullseye 308,

Sounds like you are on the road to recovery.

It takes 8 weeks from surgery for your sternotomy incision to be 80% healed. After 12 weeks it should be 100% healed. I would not do any heavy work or shoot centerfire rifles for 12 weeks from surgery. If you break the wires holding your sternum together or pull them through the cartilage before the bone heals, you will be heading back to the4 OR for sternal rewiring which will set you back another 12 weeks.

Defibrillators and pacemakers are generally put on your non-dominant side to prevent lead disruption caused by using your dominant arm. The problem comes in when you are right-handed but left eye dominant.

Good luck.

I had a heart attack and suffered heart damage so my recovery was a bit longer than those who had no heart damage. I was 42 in pretty decent physical shape and the surgery kicked my butt severely. Listen to your doctor and therapist, do what they say. Ask questions of what you can do and if the doctor says avoid shooting a BB gun for 6 weeks, don't shoot that BB gun until then. I also have a pacemaker/defibrillator and they place them on the non-dominant side. The restrictions placed on me is to avoid airport scanners, stay away from anything that emits a strong electrical signal, not to put my cell phone in my shirt pocket and keep magnets away from the pacemaker.

I had a double bypass on Oct. 23, 2013.

Recovery is slow. You are probably only beginning to discover how weak you really are. You lost strength gradually over time without realizing it. You have a lot of hard work ahead of you with P.T. I never had heart symptoms. (I went to the Doctor after I simply became to weak to walk very far. Only found out after the surgery how sick I really was).

I don't do much shooting during the winter so I was fortunate in that my surgery was late in the year. My heart doctor told me at 3 months I would want to hit him, at 6 months I would thank him and one year later I would be fully recovered. So waiting 6 months before resuming normal outdoor activities was not a problem for me.

Don't push it. For some reason a lot of friends and co-workers I know that have had bypass immediately want to jump into full-activity. I dunno. Maybe they want to prove to themselves that they are immortal.

A friend that had a recent bypass talked to me a couple of weeks ago after he became concerned about some of the pain he is having. I reassured him it is normal, told him to slow down and give his body a chance to heal and regain strength.

Take plenty of time off of work that you can afford and your employer will allow. Personally I would not do any shooting for 5 or 6 months. Instead now is the perfect time to catch up on all of your reloading, reorganizing the mancave, doing those gun projects you have started or planned.

Congratulations on your surgery. I tell everyone that my birthday is now on October 23rd of each year.

I agree with BSA1, cardiac surgery is traumatic for your body. Think about what they do, they cut your sternum in half then spread the halves apart so they have room to operate. My blockages were on the back side of the heart so they had to move that around to do the by-pass. In many cases they dig out the mammary artery on the left side of your chest to use as the by-pass splice because that is the best artery to use. The left side of my chest was sore for months after surgery, it was a full year before I felt really good again. Give your body time to recover because now you have a lot of years ahead of you to do all the shooting you want.

I've not had cardiac bypass surgery, but I'm the only white male in my office that has not. As others have said, don't rush it. As all my co-workers told me, they had to pay attention to taking care of the grafts until they had a chance to properly heal; in most cases that was about 12 months for them.

You don't say how old you are and what shape you were in before the surgery. I had bypass surgery two years ago when I was 60. I was an avid runner, was in the middle of remodeling our house (Think hanging drywall by myself etc.) and just seemed to not have the energy I used to. Just thought I was getting old. Went in for my yearly physical and the doctor suggested a stress test. After two inclusive results they did a heart cath, and based on what they found I had surgery the next day. They performed 8 bypasses. My arteries were 70-90% blocked. Heart had so many blockages it was working overtime all the time to keep me going. Hereditary. They said if I had not been eating right and exercising like I did I would either have been dead or had to have surgery 15 years before I did. No other symptoms, no pain, no high cholesterol test results. Nothing. Father lived to be 90 but his parents and siblings all had issues. The reason for this long answer is I'm telling anyone reading this to not to skip physicals or ignore symptoms. There was another guy in recovery that night with me. His screams woke me up out of a drug induced sleep. When I asked what happened to him the nurse just said "He went back to surgery. There's a reason we tell you not to use your arms to sit up." They didn't have to tell me twice after hearing him. After three months the cardiologist said I could do light weights and start jogging but be realistic. After 6 months they released me to do pretty much whatever. After 12 months I was shooting a .357 revolver with no ill effects. Probably could have been sooner but I was in no hurry. I still have some weird sensations where they harvested the mammary arteries for some of the bypasses. If your doctor says wait, my suggestion is listen carefully. Have some patience. There will be plenty of time to shoot up all that ammo in the future. And welcome to the second chance club!

So, here is a little info from a guy who has worked in cardiac surgery since 1974,,operating room nurse.
The golden connection that has over time proven to almost “plug up proof” is the internal mammary artery to the big artery supplying the left ventricle. There is an internal mammary artery that runs on either side of your sternum. The left is free’d up but left connected at its origin so it has its natural blood flow . Then, the far end is clipped, cut , prepared and used to revascularize that big artery feeding the left ventricle. For whatever reason, if performed technically correct, that connection will outlive you. For other blockages , a vein from your leg will be harvested with an endoscope( much less pain than in old days when your leg would’ve been filleted for the vein harvest) then connected past the blockages on those other artery’s , then the other end is connected to your aorta where blood is pumped through the vein, past the blockages, to revascularize the previously “starving areas”. It’s a very cool procedure and allotta advances have been made to fine tune it over the years.
Since I don’t see pts once they leave the O.R. I can’t make suggestions concerning recovery time etc. everything posted sounds like good advice. I know how well you have cared for yourself helps make the surgeon’s job easier, and we see a high number of pt’s Who just have crappy artery’s , you can bypass the major blockage, but the whole artery may full of small plaque’s it’s entire length. Or , the artery will be very small and not carry a large amount of blood flow. Just take it easy and listen to your medical staff and folks who have had the procedure previously, best of luck

I had quadruple by pass surgery on April 2nd, 2004 and was back to work (light duty) in 6 weeks, a restarted trap shooting after 12 weeks with the blessing of my cardiologist. Granted I only shot 50 rounds a week but eventually worked up to 100 rounds, now my scores weren't too impressive, but the fun factor was still there. Just be patient, which I know is easier said than done.