• Your healthcare provider will ask you to stay overnight in the hospital after the procedure and go home on the following day.
  • Your healthcare provider may ask you to avoid intense physical activity or strenuous exercise like heavy lifting, climbing stairs, running, riding a bicycle, engaging in sexual activity for at least 3 days after the procedure.
  • After your watchman procedure, you will be required to take warfarin for 45 days or until your LAA is permanently closed down.
  • A Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) will be performed 1 month following the procedure to ensure that the LAA is completely closed and to rule out the existence of any leftover blood clots.
  • Your healthcare team will also prescribe aspirin for you to take lifelong to reduce the risk of forming blood clots anywhere else in the heart and blood vessels.
  • You may be asked to do very light exercise like short walks 5 to 10 minutes several times a day daily after your procedure.
  • If you have any of the following symptoms, you should call your healthcare provider right away: 
    • numbness
    • severe pain, bleeding or swelling around the area in your upper leg
    • dizziness
    • shortness of breath
    • fever that is not reducing.