I just recently had a heart stent put in after having a heart attack. Any body have any history of having a stent and how long it took to get back to training? Thanks for any input.
My father had a stent put in last summer. He is an avid cyclist as well. I believe his doctors had him take it easy for a week or so until he began riding as usual again.
But really, this is a question for your Doc, not slowtwitch.
You have to speak with your Dr. Typically they’ll say to take it easy for 6-8 weeks. After that most are healed. I would not recommend continuing training until you have riden with a holter monitor and had the results reviewed. Some places have cardio rehab which just puts on a few leads.
Only problem will be you’ll probably be on a beta blocker and arb’s. These meds will knock down your performance by 10 to 20%. Basically doc’s say choose life first and then recreation pleasures like training.
The good news, after healing period, many recommend 6 days of week of at least 60 minutes of training.
If you go here, you can find some of the details of a national caliber masters racer who had a stent procedure
He was training “conservatively” within two weeks, racing within 5 and back to pre-stent levels (power output) in ~ 20 weeks.
Granted, he didn’t have a full-blown MI, “just” severe angina which precipitated a trip to the cardiologist where he was diagnosed with a 90% occlusion of the LAD.
Hope that helps.
P.S. More details can be found in an article on the topic that is in press.
I had one put in 3 years ago after an episode of unstable angina/small heart attack. I was 37 at the time and had a 90% blockage in my LAD. I had been an athlete through HS and college but stopped and got big and unhealthy.
Bottom line…
- too many details for each person’s situation to give any guidelines
- start with a supervised program
- find out why you had the blockage in the first place (there are many possible causes and a few docs who are good at figuring it out)
Surely you have more confidence in your cardiologist than slowtwitchers. Please take medical/training advice from slowtwitch with a skeptical eye. I understand that it is good to hear from many others, but a second opinion from a doctor you can talk to would be much better.
Hope it goes well for you and you get back to full strength soon.
Wow…I was thinking about having a body scan done since I’m over 40. I think I’ll do it now…
Good thread.
Hi! Knowrocks,
Sorry about your stent, but I am glad we have them (mine went in 5 weeks ago and I am up and gently training again). I am also in the process of building a blog to get ‘post-stent’ endurance athletes talking, as I found no single forum that addresses this growing issue. For instance, no-one told me after stent insertion to avoid rowing (see article attached to my blog), which is an issue for me, but not for you, I think. The real trick is to realize that you might have the greatest surgeon in the World, but you have to look after yourself through understanding your condition after the stent goes in (that is, for the rest of your life!). I have just had an AAA stent placed, and I still plan to go to Hawaii eventually. I am glad I didn’t qualify this year as it might have distracted me from what was going on (see nascent blog below).
http://blog.athletewithstent.com/
AAA is pretty different to coronary, but I think that the principles of self-awareness body-wise are just the same.
I find that the real issues are 80% psychological, how about you?
I wish you well with your training.
Kind Regards,
Kevin Morgan (67 yr old triathlete slowly moving up the ranks of old farts heading for Hawaii).
.
As a recent recipient of a coronary stent in my LAD, I will be looking at all of these other links as well. I had previously done a number of tris, but some years ago. I had stopped when another sport allowed me the chance to play professionally for a bit and represent my country for a couple years on the National Team. I had continued to stay in shape by training as if I was playing that sport. I decided about two months ago to rededicate myself to tris, with the goal of an IM. Thats when I had angina, which I wrote off for four weeks + as a pinched nerve. It culminated in such intense pain I almost passed out, so I went to the doc and by the end of the day had my angioplasty and stent. I have no other risk factors (high BP,diabetes, high cholesterol, etc), but still managed to have a complete blockage, with no buildup anywhere else. Well, in truth, they both called it a complete blockage but admitted there must have been some blood flow, they just could not see any. I’m getting over the mental aspect of it slowly, but I’m now both more or less “new” to tris and trying to switch from a much different training type/focus to training for tris, all while going through cardiac rehab. Great group of experts there, several who are marathoners and one triathlete as well - but they have no personal experience with athletes in their program - well, not high level athletes. We are collectively going to be finding all the info we can on this, so I’d love to keep the dialogue open here for the exchange of info. less than two weeks into cardiac rehab and I can train without any issues, other than my own limitations…okay, they give me some limits…but I’ve been able to get my hr into the 170 range with no issues…
Just to add a few notes after reading all of the posts, discussing with my awesome cardiac rehab folks and a number of excellent cardiologists…
first, there is a distinct difference with the events leading to your stent - I, for instance, did not suffer an actual “attack”. Second, medications will also predicate when/how you can train, as beta blockers will significantly lower your heart rate even while exerting yourself - your heart simply cannot work at the same rate as it had previously. Third, the details of how many stents, where they were, the success level of any angioplasty done, how much plaque may remain, etc will all also factor in. I have found out that my issue was genetic, I have a high Lp(a) level, meaning I have an extreme level of a specfic lipoprotein that is untreatable directly. So I really only have to remain a very healthy eater, and get my LDL down to under 50 (with meds, and should be there now) to counter as best we can the permanent effects of a high Lp(a). Before I do prolonged training, I will have to do a nuclear stress test, which will be about 3 weeks from now…
I just subscribed to your blog so you better start posting.
I’m 49 y.o. 2 time Ironman finisher and Tuesday I got 2 stents so we are in kind of the sama wagon.