It's Aortic Disease Awareness Month and Today is about Emotional Health
When the Emergency Is Over, But Your Mind Is Still on Alert
Understanding Anxiety, Medical Trauma & PTSD After Aortic Disease
When you hear the words aortic aneurysm, aortic dissection, or aortic surgery, life can suddenly feel divided into two parts: before and after.
Even when the immediate danger has passed, your mind may not get the message.
You may be home from the hospital. Your incision may be healing. Your doctors may tell you that everything looks stable. And yet you find yourself checking your blood pressure repeatedly, noticing every heartbeat, worrying about every ache, having trouble sleeping, or feeling anxious as your next scan approaches.
For some people, these feelings gradually improve. For others, anxiety becomes persistent or develops into medical trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
And we need to talk about it.
Why Aortic Disease Can Be Traumatic
An aortic emergency can be sudden, frightening and life-threatening. One moment you may be going about your normal day and the next you are surrounded by emergency personnel, undergoing scans, hearing unfamiliar medical terminology, or being told you need emergency surgery.
Even those diagnosed before an emergency can experience significant anxiety.
Living with an aneurysm or chronic dissection can mean knowing something inside your body needs to be monitored. There may be regular imaging, blood-pressure goals, medication changes and decisions about whether or when surgery is necessary.
Then there are those facing elective surgery. Having time to prepare doesn't necessarily eliminate fear. Sometimes having weeks or months to think about an operation creates its own emotional burden.
The body may be medically stable while the brain remains on high alert.
What Anxiety or PTSD Can Look Like
It doesn't look the same for everyone.
You might experience:
Constantly checking your heart rate, blood pressure or symptoms
Fear that another dissection or medical emergency is happening
Panic when you feel an unfamiliar sensation in your chest, back or abdomen
Difficulty sleeping or nightmares
Flashbacks or intrusive memories of the hospital or emergency
Anxiety before CT scans, MRIs, echocardiograms or appointments
Avoiding hospitals, doctors or conversations about your condition
Becoming unusually emotional around your diagnosis or surgery anniversary
Feeling constantly "on guard"
Difficulty concentrating
Irritability or feeling easily startled
Fear of exercising, traveling or being alone
Repeatedly seeking reassurance that you are okay
Sometimes the trigger is obvious.
An ambulance siren. A hospital smell. A scar. An upcoming scan.
Other times, anxiety seems to appear out of nowhere.
"But My Doctor Says I'm Fine."
This can be one of the hardest parts.
A physician may look at your scan and say, "Everything is stable. Go live your life."
Medically, that can be wonderful news.
Emotionally, however, you may be thinking:
How am I supposed to do that after everything that happened?
Recovery isn't only about repairing an aorta, replacing a valve or healing an incision. Emotional recovery deserves attention too.
And experiencing anxiety doesn't mean every physical symptom should automatically be dismissed as anxiety. People living with aortic disease still need to understand their individual warning signs and when their medical team wants them to seek urgent care.
The goal isn't to ignore your body.
It's learning how to listen to it without living in constant fear of it.
Talk to Your Healthcare Team
If anxiety is affecting your everyday life, tell someone.
You can start with your primary-care physician, cardiologist, aortic specialist or another healthcare professional you trust.
Consider saying:
"Since my diagnosis/surgery, I feel like I'm constantly waiting for something bad to happen. I'm having trouble controlling the worry, and it's affecting my life."
Tell them about sleep problems, panic attacks, nightmares, avoidance, intrusive memories, depression, changes in appetite or anything else you've noticed.
You can also ask whether speaking with a mental-health professional experienced in medical trauma, cardiac patients or PTSD would be appropriate.
What Can Help?
There isn't one solution that works for everyone.
Treatment may include counseling or psychotherapy, including approaches specifically designed to treat trauma and PTSD. Some people may benefit from medication. Others find that relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, mindfulness, journaling, gradual return to activity and learning more about their condition help them regain confidence.
Support from people who truly understand can also be incredibly valuable.
There is something powerful about hearing another survivor say:
"I understand. I felt that too."
Support groups aren't a replacement for professional mental-health care, but they can remind us that we aren't navigating this experience alone.
Give Your Mind Time to Recover, Too
After an aortic diagnosis, dissection or surgery, there can be tremendous pressure to "get back to normal."
But sometimes normal has changed.
Recovery may mean learning to trust your body again. It may mean getting through your first follow-up scan without panic, taking that first trip away from home, returning to exercise, celebrating an Aortaversary that once frightened you, or simply going an entire afternoon without thinking about your aorta.
Those moments matter.
At Aortic Hope, we believe healthcare should address the whole person—not simply the scan, the graft, the valve or the numbers on the monitor.
If you're struggling with anxiety, medical trauma or PTSD after aortic disease, consider telling someone.
Because surviving is incredibly important.
Learning how to live after surviving matters, too.
Spread Hope. Create Awareness. Provide Support.
Chaddha A, et al. “From Tear to Fear: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Patients With Acute Type A Aortic Dissection.” Journal of the American Heart Association. 2020.
Torbjörnsson E, et al. “Quality of Life, Anxiety and Depression after Acute Type B Aortic Dissection.” Annals of Vascular Surgery. 2025;112:157–165.
Rosson S, et al. “Longitudinal Course of Depressive, Anxiety, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms After Heart Surgery: A Meta-Analysis of 94 Studies.” Psychosomatic Medicine. 2021;83(1):85–93.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. “Overview of Psychotherapy for PTSD.”
Protogerou C, et al. “Moderators of the Effect of Psychological Interventions on Depression and Anxiety in Cardiac Surgery Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” Behaviour Research and Therapy. 2015;73:151–164.
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