Over on Reddit is a post about a young lady who just got the call that her donor heart is ready. I am sure we all wish her luck.
So tell me about heart transplants.
Today is my friend’s wife’s fifth rebirthday; 5 years since she received her new heart. She was on the transplant list for about a year, and there were many false alarms where they were preping her for a transplant that was cancelled at the last minute. Tracy is leading a mostly normal life, and the major recovery period was a few months while they got everything dialed in.
I can’t add much to the other questions other than to say it really is a miracle of modern medicine. She lived with near total heart failure for a year after her initial heart attack, and now you couldn’t really see that anything was wrong.
Cool. Truly we live in an age of miracles.
A family friend has a heart transplant about 10 years ago. Alas he has gone back on some of the things that caused his last heart to crap our, using tobacco and eating crap he shouldn’t be eating. Prescription costs are also pretty steep, it’s costing him about $600 a month for all the pills he has to take.
My brother-in-law had one in 2000 and is surviving well today. The prescription drugs are pretty pricey, and he does have some health issues associated with it, he’s very careful about diet and exercise, and avoids exposure to illness as best he can. An 18 year survival after surgery is pretty good, but he was young when he got it, around 45, which increases the chances of long term survival.
Kind of an interesting thing is that the doctor who performed it was kicked out of the transplant team at the hospital where it was done. Apparently he’d been faking data to make his patients appear sicker than they really were to get them moved up on the transplant list. Maybe not having to wait until they were at death’s door before getting a new heart affected long term survival rate as well.
I taught scuba diving. And for any course there was a rather extensive questionnaire. Any “yes” answers and you will need a physician’s release before diving. It was not terribly uncommon for people to lie about a question or two. So you see where this is going…
Yes, I had a student who lied and denied any history of heart surgeries. He had no problem picking up 40lbs of gear plus an additional 35lb for a second tank and carrying them to/from the pool and across the beach to load onto the dive boat. He seemed to be quite fit for a man in his late 50s. Had he been a little more careful with his rash guard I never would have known, but I caught sight of his scar. When I asked about it he told me he had a transplant.
Heart transplants are amazing, and an incredible boost to quality of life as well as quantity. So I’d say with respect to OP’s question 6 that recovery can be very complete, with at least some patients enjoying a substantial QOL improvement.
Very little detailed experience with heart transplants, but back when I was in my early 20s a cousin of mine needed one. He refused to quit smoking, so they wouldn’t even put him on the list, so he died. (I think that he was in his early 40s at the time.) I assume that they are still as ruthless in not wasting a rare heart on someone who is only going to abuse it?
The facts about heart transplants:
More on mortality:
The founder of the Vanguard investment company, John C. Bogle, had one in 1996 at age 67 and 22 years later he’s still alive. Interview from 2014: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/jeff-blumenthal/2014/04/jack-bogle-new-heart-same-man.html
I read somewhere that a person with a heart transplant does not get rapid heartbeats from a scary movie (one example) because the nerves that control that are not connected to the new heart. Is that true?
I’m old enough to remember the world’s first heart transplant, done in 1967 by a South African surgeon named Christiaan Barnard. In those days the survival rate was very poor. According to Wikipedia, around 100 transplants were attempted around the world the following year, and only a third of the patients lived longer than three months. Success rates improved in later years, with two of Barnard’s patients surviving 23 and 24 years.
Keep in mind that people like John Bogle can afford the best in healthcare.
I am finding absolutely nothing on the web about this, pro or con.
There are about 5,000 per year worldwide, 2K in US.
Waiting times average 9 months.
75% of recipients live 5 years after transplant.
Full recovery takes six months.
My husband had a heart transplant. As in most things - “Individual results will vary.” He suffered from heart disease for 9 years and then suffered with the new heart. Yes somtimes he was feeling fine and able to be active. He was often suffering from the side effects of the drugs or in the hospital. He was never able to work again. He lived 8 years with the new heart. It is not magic. It is trading one set of medical problems for another.
With regard to heart rate after transplant, the heart is indeed denervated although there is some evidence that some of the nerves can regenerate. The most noticeable effect is the loss of parasympathetic tone so that resting heart rate is higher and there is no vagal nerve input. If you are discussing specifically increased heart rate in response to a scary movie then you have to remember that the increased heart rate is caused by both increased sympathetic tone and catecholamines. The latter will still be produced in the adrenal glands and will reach the heart via circulation. Therefore, you would still expect to have an increase in heart rate but the effect would be delayed and blunted.
Thank you all.