Any medical types on the flist...

[kellifer]

So, I have a couple of questions for a fic and I'm sure I could google or wiki it but...

- What kind of complications could arise from a heart transplant?

- What are the considerations? Do blood types have to match etc...?

- What's the recovery like?

Basically I'm going to be using "science-fiction" rather than science - alien technology, but there are some things that would still work the same...

This is for my second sweet charity fic so any help would be appreciated... I've completely changed what I'm writing... again... *bites fingernails*

Comments

[jebbypal]

Considerations - Blood types should match. Also important are HLA matching, however, for heart transplants this isn't done ahead of time, rather it's done during the surgery and determines the anti-rejection regimine that one takes after. This link goes through it pretty well for the layman - http://www.chfpatients.com/tx/txrejection.htm

As far as complications, the major one will be host versus graft disease for a heart transplant (the opposite, GVD, is more likely with bone marrow or liver transplants). Any amount of inflammation around the heart is going to do two things - decrease efficiency of pumping and also negatively impact breathing because the space around the heart (the pericardium) will get flooded with fluid and start pressing on the heart and lungs. Inflammation in these areas also lead to pneumonia frequently. The symptoms will be much like what the person had prior to the transplant - congestive heart failure. Additionally, the amount of inflammation will increase the risk for stroke due to immune cells clotting in places. The damage from inflammation from the rejection will also lead to severe hardening of the arteries around the heart.

Recovery -- Major heart surgery is a bitch to recover from. First, there's the fact that the ribs have been cracked -- doing this and the resulting trauma inside the chest cavity make it a priority to recover the patient's breathing. The surgery causes the lungs to pull up and also negatively impacts the diaphram. So breathing therapy to regain lung volume is the first and longest process. It also hurts horribly from people I know that have had chest surgery. Second, anyone far enough along to have a heart transplant is going to need basic therapy as well - as congestive heart failure and similar causes proceed, the person can do less and less due to the poor circulation and so will generally be in pretty poor condition muscular wise and all. They will FEEL a hundred times better thanks to the improved blood flow, but they'll still be very weak.

I think those are the basics. You can email me if you have more questions (not a MD doctor, but almost went that way and still am resposible for translating the medicine for all of my family and friends).

[jebbypal]

Ooh, forgot about the most interesting side effect:

Activity Level

Your heart reacts differently to stress now. The nerves that connected your original heart to your nervous system were cut during the transplant surgery and do not heal. That means your heart cannot respond immediately to exercise, sudden movement, or emotional stress like fear. It does react, but not nearly as fast. Now, it increases its rate in response to hormones in your blood.