How Long Does It Take To Repair An Aortic Aneurysm?

The aortic aneurysm repair or surgery itself will take one to two hours depending on the type of repair and complications associated with the patient. Doctors recommend for the AAA i.e. abdominal aortic aneurysm repair surgery to provide an effective treatment of aortic aneurysm. Aneurysm refers to a weak and a bulging spot present in the aorta, which remains at a huge risk related to rupture. In this situation, aneurysm remains within a particular region of aorta i.e. the abdomen. Doctors perform the surgery in either of the two different ways-

Open Repair Surgery: In the open repair surgery, doctors make a big incision in your abdomen for exposing the aorta. Once they open the abdomen, they use a graft for repairing the aneurysm. Open repair constitutes the standard procedure for abdominal aortic aneurysm repair process.

EVAR i.e. Endovascular Aneurysm Repair: EVAR i.e. Endovascular Aneurysm Repair surgery is one of the minimally invasive options. In this type of surgery, treatment goes on without any requirement of a large incision. Here, doctors opt to make relatively smaller incision in the patients’ groin. Later on, they insert special type of instruments by using a catheter within the artery present in the groin and thread each of them towards the aneurysm. At this aneurysm, the doctor will place the graft and the stent for providing support to the aneurysm.

AAA repair/surgery is important because of the following prime reasons-

• To avoid the risk related to aneurysm rupture
• To relieve various symptoms associated with the problem
• To restore the flow of blood in an effective way
• To eliminate the formed aneurysm, whose size exceeds 5cm in diameter or about 2 inches
• Growth rate of any formed aneurysm exceeds 0.2 inch or 0.5 cm in one year only
• When the risk related to rupture outweighs the risk related to surgical procedure
• Whenever there is life-threatening bleeding and requires emergency medical care.

Recovery time associated with AAA repair/surgery is variable. However, if you admit in the hospital in healthy condition, you may expect to get relatively faster recovery than when you admit in sick condition. Patients dealing with the problem of aortic aneurysm usually stay in healthy condition and may withstand the surgical procedure without any significant recovery time. In almost every case, patients have to sleep properly before the surgical procedure and arrive at the hospital in rest condition. Doctors provide the necessary sleep aids to help in the mentioned procedure.

Doctors usually recommend for specific methods to help in the recovery process of the patients. One of the important factors in this case is perhaps the positive attitude of patients. Patients believe to live a healthy and abundant life will get a rapid recovery. Secondly, individuals reducing the total number of cigarettes they smoke to less than five in each day may get faster recovery than others get.

Most of the patients often remain in the hospital for a period of 5 days to 7 days. Later on, they go home and experience tiredness for one or two weeks. Later on, they feel normal. According to doctors, patients require six weeks period for complete healing of the sternum. Therefore, heavy lifting for the specified period is strictly avoidable.

During the recovery period, patients should make sure to be fully aware of their heartbeats. The reason for this is that heart attaches temporarily to the breastbone, which later on transmits sound via stapes i.e. ear bones. Doctors said that this situation is normal and patients may alleviate it by simply using a sound diffuser.

Recovery period associated with abdominal aortic aneurysm is variable depending primarily on the individual condition of any patient. However, patients stay in healthy condition and at the same time, reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke may expect to get faster recovery and thereby, quick discharge from the hospital.

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