@mocgreen What you’re describing actually makes a lot of sense after this kind of surgery. When they repair the ascending aorta, they spend a lot of time working in the very top of the chest—right behind the breastbone and up toward the base of the neck. Even after the sternum itself settles down, the deeper tissues up there are still healing and adjusting. A lot of people feel strange sensations in that exact area for a while.

That “stuck” or “pulling” feeling inside the upper chest is something many of us notice as the swelling goes down and the scar tissue inside the chest starts loosening up. It can feel like the inner layers are sliding around or separating again as everything settles back into place. It’s not the bone—it’s the soft tissue healing and reorganizing itself. The area right under the neck is also where the collarbones meet the sternum, and those joints get pulled pretty hard during surgery when the chest is opened. Even after the main incision pain fades, that upper chest region can stay sore or tight for a while. The key things to watch for are symptoms that are clearly worsening, sharp pain with breathing, fever, redness or swelling at the incision, or instability of the sternum. But the kind of deep tissue pulling sensation you described is very commonly part of the healing process. The body went through a massive operation. Even when the bones feel better, the connective tissue and nerves are still remodeling for months afterward.

I went through a Type A aortic dissection in 2015 and had emergency open-heart surgery with a Dacron graft placed in my ascending aorta. My sternum pain faded fairly quickly, but that upper chest tightness and pulling feeling stuck around longer. It slowly improved as the weeks went by and everything inside continued healing. Even after nearly 11 years, I still have little pings and weird pains occasionally where I had tubes, sutures, etc. Ten weeks is still pretty early in the grand scheme of recovery from this surgery. The outside often heals faster than the deeper tissues. Many of us notice those odd internal sensations for a few months as the body finishes settling down. The encouraging part is that what you’re describing sounds very familiar to a lot of people who’ve gone through the same operation. Peace.