12 yr. old child needs replacements

MY NAME IS CHERYL, I HAVE A LITTLE BOY RYAN WHO IS 12, HE HAS HAD A PACEMAKER SINCE 15 MONTHS DUE TO TWO DIFFERENT HEART DEFECTS WHEN HE WAS BORN, HE GOT A 3 LEAD PACER AT 7 YR. OLD, AND NOW ON NOV. 11 WE GO TO DUKE HOSPITAL TO GET A BATTERY AND A LEAD CHANGE, THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT PUTTING A PACER WITH A DEFIBULATOR IN HIM, DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY INFO, ABOUT THIS KIND OF PACEMAKER ?

2 Comments

icd

by Tracey_E - 2009-11-05 09:11:30

A pm with a defibrillator, or icd, is a bit larger than a regular pacemaker. It has a built in defibrillator, just like you've probably seen in hospitals that work externally. If his heart were to get in a dangerous rhythm, the icd would get him back to a regular rhythm. The pm will add extra beats to keep his heart beating regularly, the icd works as a reboot.
This is a better explanation
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/icd/icd_whatis.html

Three Lead PM & Defribillator

by SMITTY - 2009-11-05 10:11:36

Hello Cheryl,

I can give you my uneducated guess and non professional opinion on each of the devices that you mention. For reliable answers to your question your doctor will be the best source of an answer to your question and how the three lead pacemaker and defibrillator will help your son's heart.

Single lead pacemaker. This is a PM with only one lead and is used to assist in maintaining a regular heart rhythm in one heart chamber. That chamber can be the atrial or the ventricle.

Two lead pacemaker. This is a PM with two leads and is used to improve the heart rhythm in both the atrial and ventricle. As with the single lead PM in can be set to insure that the heart rate does not drop below a certain level, which is determined by what the doctor sees as the patient's need. In addition the two lead and those with more than two leads, (I don't know if this is available on a single lead PM) has something called rate response. This means the PM can speed up the heart rate when a person has activity that would normally increase their heart rate, but for some reason their's needs a boost.

Three lead pacemaker. This PM, as you would expect, with three lead (you say your son has one of these now) that improves the heart rhythm in the atrial and the left and right ventricle chambers to improve overall blood flow.

I'm not trying to diagnose your son's problem, but for some of us with congestive heart failure and a low ejection fraction (EF is a numerical means of stating the amount of blood being pumped by the heart with each beat) the three lead PM has been a great asset.

Three lead pacemakers and a defibrillator are just as that says. The PM will help the heart rhythm as described above and also includes a defibrillator.

The defibrillator is an electrical impulse generator which is implanted in patients who are at risk of having ventricular fibrillation. The ventricle contraction is supposed to follow the contraction of the atrial in an orderly manner, but sometimes the ventricle's natural pacing system goes haywire and we get ventricular fibrillation which means the ventricle is beating so fast that rather than being a heart beat, as we think of them, it is more like a quiver and can not pump sufficient blood to sustain life for very long. The defibrillator monitors this action of the ventricle and when it determines the beat is out of sync, or too fast, it will administer an electrical shock to monetarily stop the ventricle so that it can return to a normal rhythm.

Almost any day we can see on TV medical shows the medics using a defibrillator to correct, or restart, a heart beat. This is the same thing the defibrillator does, only your son's paddles will be a tiny wire and the electrical shocks are applied more precisely and from the inside the heart. There are several PM club members with a defibrillator and I'm sure some will share their experience, if you ask.

I wish your son the best,

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