Aortic Aneurysms – Introduce yourself & meet others

I have discussed my exercise with my cardiologist. I have an aortic aneurism. It’s at 5 cm.
Like to sail, usually the only stress is pulling on the lines to control the sails. Can this be harmful. What about pushing a lawn mower or lifting grocery bags. It’s hard to know what I can safely do. It causes so much anxiety. Thank you

The main issue with exercising and aneurysms is the probable sudden increase in BP that happens when performing certain exercises. Anything that makes you hold your breath and/or grunt when exerting can punctually raise your BP to really dangerous levels, especially at the size of your aneurysm. One of the things you can do is to find a PT Dr that can help you learn how to properly breathe when exercising. I would avoid heavy lifting and exercises like crunches since no matter how much you learn we sometimes unconsciously forget and hold our breath (at least it happens to me). But you want to stay active and keep your body healthy, there’s a balance (I believe the video gives some good advice and explains well the options)

Thank you for posting the video! It's very helpful!!

At 5 cm you are right on the mark for surgery. You need to find a really good thoracic surgeon in a major metropolitan area near you and become best friends. You should be having CT scans with contrast at least annually and preferably every six months. You cannot ignore this. Cardiologist do not do heart surgery. They prescribe pills and potentially do interventional cardiology With stents. That is not what you are facing. What you need to accept is that you are going to need open our surgery to repair that aorta. It’s going to be OK. I have had mine repaired. I won’t lie to you, it’s a lot to open our surgery, but I promise you this That it’s much better than the alternative which is an aortic dissection which are often times fatal. Untreated the mortality rate is one percent an hour. So, you do not want to wait and you need to make sure that you have a good relationship established right now with a thoracic surgeon who is a specialist in aortic repair. You’re going to be fine. For right now, you need to keep your blood pressure down, don’t be lifting anything heavy over than 10 pounds or so and get in to see your medical team this week. If you think about an aortic aneurysm as a bulging front tire on your car, you would never just go driving down the freeway at 75 miles an hour knowing that it could blow out. You need to address this and you need to make sure that you are meeting with the thoracic surgeon. Get a referral from your cardiologist or find a new cardiologist. Again, I can’t emphasize this enough: cardiologists are not trained in thoracic surgery and they are not going to be the ones that go into your chest to repair this. A thoracic surgeon can do a lot for you if they know about your condition in advance, and the need to do it. Once this surgery becomes emergent because you have dissected, there is a very high risk of mortality. Don’t wait. You came to the right place and you’re gonna be OK But you have to address it. Peace.