Living with Your New Lungs
We’ll make sure you feel confident going home after your surgery by preparing you for how your recovery will progress and helping you understand your next steps. We want you to follow our instructions. But we also want you to enjoy your life. We’ll arm you with the information you need to make good decisions for your health — and be there to cheer you on when you get back to activities you love.
Helping You Understand Your Limitations During Recovery
Your new lungs can give you a new lease on life, and we’re here to help you enjoy it responsibly. Knowing what to do — and what not to — will go a long way toward ensuring you recover well.
Your post-transplant limitations will likely include:
- Avoiding lifting anything heavier than 5 to 10 pounds for the first two to six months after surgery.
- Limiting physical activity to low impact exercises, like walking, for several weeks after surgery. While exercise will help you get stronger and feel better, it’s best to talk with your care team before adding back any moderate or high impact exercise, so we can be sure you stay safe.
- Staying out of the driver’s seat while your breastbone is healing: A seatbelt could make that harder. Let someone else drive when you need to leave the house and sit in the back seat, whenever possible.
After two to three months, you may return to work. But that depends on how you feel and the type of work you do. Your transplant team of doctors, nurses and social workers can help you decide when you’re ready.
Monitoring Your Ongoing Health Through Post-Transplant Checkups
After your lung transplant, we’ll continue to closely monitor your lung health at our outpatient clinic. These visits help to prevent complications. They also allow us to look for early signs of organ rejection, and for you to get advice from your care team when you need it. If you live more than two to three hours away from the lung transplant center, we’ll ask you to stay nearby for one year.
Your first clinic visit will be two to three days after hospital discharge. After that, your clinic visits will be weekly for the first month, and then monthly for the first year. Barring any complications, your clinic visits will then decrease to once a year.
At each checkup, you’ll have the following tests:
- Blood test
- Breathing test
- Chest X-ray
- Physical exam
Since we must monitor your lungs closely for the first year, we’ll perform a series of five to six lung biopsies — performed via bronchoscopy — over the course of the year. Your transplant coordinator will explain the process and timing, and help you schedule these appointments.
Encouraging Your Best Life Through Medication Management and Lifestyle Changes
Living with new lungs is an adjustment that requires a steadfast commitment to healthy habits, and to staying on top of your daily immunotherapy medications. The healthier you are, the easier your recovery —and your quality of life.
We recommend adopting these habits to protect your new lungs:
- Eating a healthy diet. Nutrient-rich foods and foods with antioxidant properties support your immune system, reduce inflammation and promote healing and recovery.
- Limiting your alcohol intake. Considering limiting yourself to one or two drinks on occasion. Alcohol can decrease lung activity and impair your cough reflex.
- Quitting smoking or using drugs. Aside from causing damage to your transplanted lungs, smoking increases your risk of rejection and can delay your recovery. Recreational drugs can also cause respiratory complications and impaired immune response.
- Staying away from others when they’re sick. The immunosuppressive medications you’re prescribed after lung transplantation to prevent rejection weaken your immune system and make you more vulnerable to infection and other illnesses. Washing your hands often and wearing a mask in public will also help.
- Taking your medication daily. You’ll need to take up to 15 immunotherapy medications every day for the rest of your life to help prevent rejection of your new lungs.