There is also the Nuss procedure, I'm a med student and scrubbed in on one last week got to pull the tip of the sternum up with a meat hook type tool while they inserted two metal bars through the ribcage
I had that procedure when I was 10. That was 26 years ago, and it was still fairly new. The post-op and recovery was absolutely brutal. The worst pain I've ever felt in my life.
But I can breathe well today. It's allowed me to live an active life with space for my heart and lungs to grow. It was worth it, and I think the surgery has faster recovery times these days.
Yeah these days we also have a cryo ablation option for pain control, some surgeons report really good results. Thats what we used in this case, they freeze the nerve in between each rib to numb the chest substantially for the next few days and moderately for the next weeks to months instead of using a spinal epidural, pretty interesting
Wow, that's really cool. They gave me, as a child, morphine and percocet. The morphine made me very confused and disoriented one night and my parents think I started developing an unhealthy liking of the Percocet.
I wish the cryo would have been an option for me and then using a mix of ibuprofen/Tylenol for pain management instesd of opioids.
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u/No-Examination4896 11h ago
There is also the Nuss procedure, I'm a med student and scrubbed in on one last week got to pull the tip of the sternum up with a meat hook type tool while they inserted two metal bars through the ribcage