Discussions: Patient and Caregiver Forums

I’ve had my Lvad now for eight months. I have continuous hiccups when I’m sitting but when I’m standing or walking they go away anyone else have this problem? I do use a hiccups straw, but they seem to come back.

Hi Everyone, my roommate has a heart mate 3 and has had an infection in the past. The last few days he has had a discharge of a green color and he seems to think that is normal. All he does is sleep, nothing new tho but he isn’t feeling well either. Has diarrhea also. What do you all think? I think...

Hi all!! My name is Dick. I was just reminded that I joined this forum 15 days ago. Here is my story so far. I went to the hospital on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to get the evaluations and approvals done. I was supposed to return the following week and have the LVAD installed if all went well...

Hi all! I am new to the LVAD caregiver community. My Father-in-law has his LVAD surgery this Wednesday. He is a BIG lover of the outdoors so I want to get him a fishing style vest to haul around his equipment in (his backup equipment will be in a bag). Can anyone with a HeartMate 3 tell me the...

Hi everybody, I got this email this morning and I read there's a new device that is implanted including the batteries. I don't think I want to go through the surgery again,but I would like to find out if the batteries will be replaced with the ones that I have and are lighter than the ones I have...

I haven’t written anything on this forum since my mom got her LVAD that back in 2019. The circumstances Nat my mom received her LVAD that in were not ideal. I took her for an appointment, as I have been doing many times since her heart failure diagnosis, and we were told that if she left she would...

Hello all, My 73 year-old husband Terry recently passed away, of complications related to a rare type of pneumonia. He received his Heartmate 3 VAD on August 5, 2019 and yes, we went through all the highs and some of the lows post implant. I want to tell everyone to embrace each day; we had SO MANY...

My husband received his LVAD in August 2021. He has an iron deficiency and has to go for iron infusions. He also got an infection in his sternum. Has anyone dealt with these issues. Pat

Hi, let me start off by saying, that I never put the correct punction in, so if you have a question about what I am saying please ask, also I can be a tad bit long-winded. I guess I like to give all information so you know the whole situation. So let me start off by saying I have had CHF for 17 1/2...

My dad has lived with his LVad for about 4 years successfully. In recent months he developed an infection and was treated for same in the hospital and now takes a medication to keep the infection at bay. Of course he has other medications related to his device as well. The infection was caught in...

Hello everyone. My husband has had two lvads. The first was a heart ware .And the second is a heart mate three. The first one ended up giving him a blood clot inside the lvad. Two strokes and two brain bleeds. He has come back for the most part . Right side weakness, short term memory loss . Doing...

My husband recently passed away due to many different health issues. I don’t have a lot but I do have some bandaging supplies diabetic paraphernalia including insulin that is good until 2022. I would be more than happy to give it to someone instead of throwing it away. let me know if you’re...

Hello My Aunt got her LVAd around 3 weeks back but unfortunately the recovery is extremely slow. She is in early 50s. she was on ventilator for almost 2 weeks. She is able to breathe on her own now but we have noticed: - she keeps her eyes closed for most of the day and doesnt talk much - she...

Hi, my name is Tonya and i have had my vad implanted 1 year and 5 days ago. And since then i have had chronic driveline infections and within the last 2 months i have had 2 diffrent surgery's, 1. Cause i had a brain bleed( just from hitting my head on a cabinet door, ) so i had to have emergency...

My father just had an LVAD put in on October 9th. The surgery went good and he was taken off the ventilator the following day. He then began to develop extreme breathing problems and was not able to take deep enough breaths and was retaining carbon dioxide and becoming extremely confused due to this...

My husband had a Heartmate 3 Inserted last March and did very well at first but soon was experiencing GI bleeds, source unknown after tests and scopes. Has rec'd numerous units of blood to get his Hemoglobin up to a whopping 8 or 9. MD wants to try Eliquis instead of Coumadin but not much study has...

Hello VAD family, Just wanted to jump on really quick and make my first ever Vad post. My Husband is just 4 weeks post LVAD implant surgery. We have been living with CHF for about 5 years now, if he wanted to continue life the only option was LVAD surgery. I was prepared for a very difficult...

Leaky valve 2.5 years after surgery

Hey y'all, I am a senior in college in a group working on our senior project. We are developing an improvement in mobility and reducing infection for the driveline exit site. In order to survey customer needs, we made a ~7 minute questionare if y'all have time it would be much appreciated. This...