Pulmonary Hypertension News Forums Forums PH Care and Treatment Side Effects and Symptoms Have You Ever Experienced Muscle Atrophy?

  • Have You Ever Experienced Muscle Atrophy?

    Posted by Colleen on October 10, 2019 at 8:52 am

    My son has spent a lot of time in the hospital since childhood, sometimes for a month or longer. During those long stays he was always encouraged to get out of bed and walk around, if just a little, to prevent muscle atrophy. He was very weak at times but that was caused by a number of things. Luckily he never experienced muscle atrophy.

    Have you experienced muscle atrophy? Was it caused by remaining in bed due to your health, or was something else the culprit? How did your doctor treat the symptoms? Share your experience and tips with us.

    brittany-foster replied 4 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • brittany-foster

    Member
    October 10, 2019 at 9:28 am

    OHHH YESSS. I definitely have experienced loss of muscle in my body, especially my legs after just staying pretty much stationary for months at a time before my major surgery that I had this past May. The body DOES have muscle memory but it takes awhile to get it back. I once had a really athletic build and not being able to workout as much as I would like to and pretty much doing the bare minimum for 7 months of my life really took away a lot of the muscles I had. It just made me feel really weak, tired, and my legs always felt like jelly when walking up the stairs. I am working on slowly building back my strength especially when trying to increase my caloric intake lately with literally ANYTHING I can get down. Food needs to fuel the muscles too in order for them to work properly. My pulmonologist is actually trying me on a medication to help with muscle contraction as well so I think that the combo of me trying things out and trying to do everything I can for myself along with getting some help from medications will be really beneficial.

    • Colleen

      Member
      October 10, 2019 at 4:01 pm

      Brittany, it must feel like a vicious circle. When you feel that way you probably don’t want to get up and move around, yet you have to. There were so many times my son would be in tears because he really didn’t feel well enough to get out of bed but was told he had to. He even passed out once during one of his walks in the hospital hallway. He had an awesome nurse with him who caught him in time and helped him back to his room. The next day, he still had to get out of bed and walk again.

      • brittany-foster

        Member
        October 11, 2019 at 8:20 am

        Colleen,
        Like your son, I have also had that experience of passing out or feeling so light headed that I was about to pass out. I think a lot of it was from the pain level that I was experiencing that was so beyond anything anyone should ever have to deal with. It was just awful. But I remember still DOING IT anyway and literally just putting one foot in front of the other and hoping for the best. They are right though when they say that moving and making sure you are up and walking is one of the best things for surgery recovery, especially after a heart surgery. As soon as I could walk again I did. Even if it just was to the top of my street and back. My surgeon suggested doing just a little more each day, even if it is just a few feet. That mentality really helped me a lot because it made me realize, I don’t need to be climbing mountains, it’s just a few steps.

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