Hi Friends, I have a broken lead (ventricle) and a pacer change scheduled for Friday. Can anyone tell me what to expect?
Thanks

 

 

Hello Afriviole,

I had my 9 year old dual lead Methodic PM replaced in Oct '09. I had many of the same questions you do and to my pleasant surprise it was about as near nothing as any surgery can be. I went in abut 7 AM, as told, laid down and read the paper and watched TV for a couple of hours then spent the next 3 or 4 hours being prepped, which consisted mainly of getting about a quart (at least it looked like that amount) of antibiotic through an I'VE and the surgery area cleaned and cleaned real good Once that was completed I was wheeled off to the PM lab, as they call it, and spent another 30 or 40 minutes being "dressed" for the surgery.

Sometime after I got in the PM lab I received some medication to make me relax so they said, but what it did was make take a nap in about a half-sleep mode. I vaguely remember being told they were injecting a pain killer into the area where the surgery would be performed. Between 30 and 45 minutes later I was told, "okay Mr. Smith, we are through and every thing is working fine" and then I was wheeled back into a room where I had to wait for awhile to be sure I had no adverse reactions to any of the meds I had received. About 5 PM I was told I could go home. I was no more sore this time than I was with my first one, which was almost none, and healing has been no more or less a problem than the first one.

Now, that was my experience, but since we are all different, I hope your replacement is as easy as trouble free as mine.

I've not had lead removed, or replaced so that I'll let some else tell you about that experience.

Good luck to you,

Smitty

 

Unable to answer your question by wondered how you broke a lead, did you do anything in particular?

 

Tom, sometimes they just go bad, it's usually nothing we did. When mine went bad, there was a rupture in the insulation, no idea how it happened but it showed up on the interrogations so I knew about it long before I had it replaced. We waited until the battery died. It worked, it just killed the battery quickly.

afriviole, you can expect it to be about like your first surgery, a little easier because they'll be going in through the scar tissue. Because you need a new lead, it'll be slightly more involved than Smitty's replacement.

I'm on #4. My first two replacements were just like Smitty described- in and out, very fast recovery, only a pacer change. This last time, in January, I got a new lead also. Since I've been paced so long (1993), there was a chance of stenosis making the veins too stiff to fit another lead so I had a venogram before my surgery to see if there was room. There was, so they just put the new lead in on top of my original two, disconnected and capped off the bad one, switched out the pm and all done! New leads mean babying the left arm for 6-8 weeks like you did after the first surgery.

3-4 leads can normally fit in a vein. If for some reason they don't fit, they can either extract what's there or move it all to the right side. It used to be they automatically moved it but extracting has become much more common the last few years. You haven't had yours long enough for that to likely be an issue.

Good luck!!

 

I don't have an answer to your question as I still have my first pacemaker but would love to hear all about your surgery.

good luck!!

Pookie

 

and if you happen to find out how your lead did break, I'd love to hear about that too. :)

Pookie