Stents After You Get a Stent

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Before you leave the hospital, your healthcare provider will give you instructions to follow at home.

• Take your medicines according to your provider’s directions. You may need to take medicines to prevent complications. For example, antiplatelet medicines can help stop a blood clot from forming in a coronary stent.
• Resume normal physical activity and return to work when your provider says it’s okay. For most people, this can happen within a few days to a week.
• Make a follow-up appointment. Your provider will want to check on your progress and make sure there are no problems.

There are risks from placing a stent in an artery, including:

• Allergic reactions to the contrast dye used to look at blood vessels with X-rays
• Arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat
• Bleeding or discomfort where the catheter was inserted
• Damage to blood vessels from the catheter
• Infection
• Rarely, damage to the kidneys from the contrast dye

It is rare for life-threatening problems to happen during a stenting procedure. However, people who have had other procedures to treat blocked arteries or who have congestive heart failure, kidney disease, or diabetes are usually at higher risk of serious complications, including:

• Blood flow being cut off from the gut or the lower part of the body during an aortic aneurysm repair
• Heart attack
• Rupture or burst of an aortic aneurysm
• Stroke
• Tear in the artery (dissection)

Risks from airway stent procedures include:

• Arrhythmia
• Cardiac arrest
• Infection
• Migration, or unexpected movement, of the stent
• Needing a tracheostomy because the airways become blocked
• Pneumothorax
• Respiratory failure