consistant chest pain 1 year after bypass

[SpecBoatUnits]

I had an off pump quintuple bypass last year (7-5-06) and am still having pain around my sternum, left deltoid, and left upper and lower pectoral. I'm in my early 40's and take 10mg crestor, 20mg citolipram, 82 mg aspirin, 750 mg glucosimine chondroitine and a multivitamin daily. I am fairly active ( walk a couple times a week and work on my landscaping often), plus I work very long physical days (10-16hrs). The super long hours are recent event( 5 weeks) and have not affected my chest pain, it has remained consistent since the surgery. I usually get around 7-8 hours sleep a night. I talked briefly with my cardiologist, he was not extremely helpful! What can I do to relieve the chest and shoulder pain and do you think it has to do with the fact they harvested most of the graft material from the vessels in my chest?

[CCF-M.D.-PPB]

Your pain in the chest is not related to the harvested graft.  It is most likely related to the open chest operation (sternotomy).  Unfortunately, it is often difficult to treat and I would not recommend taking any NSAID's (Ibuprofen) for long periods of time because they counteract the beneficial effects of ASA.  Tylenol is ok as long as you don't consume large quantities of alcohol and your liver is healthy (sounds like it is because you are taking crestor).  Physical therapy can often be helpful and I would strongly recommend that.  Of course, taking easy with all this physical activity would probably help with your pain but it sounds like you enjoy it too much to give it up and I support that, plus it's good for your heart.