new PM and having trouble , shoulder/back

I am writing for my grandmother. she will be 84 next week and just had a PM placed 5 days ago. That was the beginning of what seems to be a long road! Did great the first 2 days and went home with me for assistance since she lives alone. (she has had 4 hip replacements and 2 knees so getting around requires a walker or cane. we didn't want her to over do the usage of her arm after PM placed)

The 3rd day after surgery she began to comlain of shoulder and back pain. Then there was majoring "thumping" that I could even see from the exterior. add to that the occasional heart racing with pulse up to 130. The office put it off on PVCs, and wanted to put her on a betablocker to help. Hello....you can't see PVCs from OUTSIDE the body. The wanted us to wait around and come in first thing Monday morning, 3 days away. The 4th day she had worsening pain and began to have chest pain as well. As I was driving her to the hospital she began telling me where her burial clothes were. She was certain this was the end.

The ER tried to blow off the issue, no heart attack. But they were shocked to see the PM not working correctly. some adjustments have gotten rid of the "thumping" but the pain continued in her back. She was kept over night for observation at my persistance. The next day the Cardiologist on call said the PM was working fine and it was just muscle pain...."we can't keep you here for muscle pain." Finally, today they repeated the interegation of the PM and found "well, its not working at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" what a miserable experience this has been.

They have gone back in today to repair the preblems and we are hoping for a different turn out this time.

I am hoping there are others here that have had problems with shoulder and back pain after PM placement that can lend us some info. What was the cause of your pain??????

Thanks for any insight to the new world of pace makers for us!!!

4 Comments

pain

by Tracey_E - 2010-08-24 07:08:02

I'm sorry your grandmother has had such a hard time of it! Thank goodness she has you to help out.

Pain is normal for as long as 6-8 weeks though it usually improves by the end of the first week or two. Unlike her knee and hip replacements where it's a joint, this times it's in the muscle and they often do a lot of manipulation to get it in right which leaves us sore.

Does she use a cane or walker now? This is just a guess, but I would think that would aggravate it and leave her sore longer. Be very careful how she uses her left arm. Moving it is good because you don't want her shoulder to freeze up, but raising it above shoulder level or lifting weight can pull the leads loose. I'm thinking weight on a walker could be bad also, anything that stresses that left side can affect the leads and needs to be avoided for about 6 weeks.

Good luck! If you have any questions about living with a pm, please don't be shy. I hope she gets to feeling better soon.

thank you so much!!

by MEMAGEE - 2010-08-24 08:08:09

I am so very grateful for your responses and just to know someone else understands what she is going through. She was able to come home today but now 6 hrs later she is having chest pain again and now feels a "clicking" instead of the "thumping". she is very frustrated. We are ready to get it settled. she was never told the PM could cause pain....thought it would relieve any concerns she had.

You will see us here again because we need help and encouragement!

Thanks so much

Putting weight ON your arms

by cruz - 2010-08-24 08:08:12

I was told by the nurse at the hospital to be sure to move my arm, just by gently swinging it several times a day...not raising it over my shoulder, etc. I was also told not to push up with my arm such as pushing with my arms to lift myself up out of a chair. If your Grandmother is using a walker or cane, she is pushing her arm down on the walker, which is putting her weight on that arm. That might be part of the problem. It takes a great deal of time for the soreness and pain to subside even for someone much younger than your Grandmother. I had my implant in February, and if I roll onto the left side in the night, I still wake up with a sore shoulder. Hopefully, they will be able to get this fixed and your Grandmother will be on the road to recovery.It seems ridiculous that it took your insistence for them to fully check the PM. Thank goodness you were on top of things. You Grandmother is lucky to have you there for her.

Grandmother;s Pacemaker

by SMITTY - 2010-08-24 10:08:02

Hello Memagee,

Your grandmother has my sympathy. I have a little understanding of her aches and pains as I am 81 and going through many of the same problems she has. I've had no joint replacements and I'm not to using a walker yet, but within the last few months I have had to use a cane on many days. And I will not even try to talk about the back pain I live with daily.

As for pain from her pacemaker, I've had one for 11 years and know pain from the things is not uncommon. That should not be so and it is one of the little things they fail to tell us. I should add many people do not have pain caused by their pacemaker. I'm of the opinion that for about half of us that do have pain caused by their pacemaker, it is the result of the incompetence of the doctor or the people doing the checkups. The other half falls into the group that is unlucky and have the well known complications we so often hear about. In some cases these complications are the result of human error or failure, or they may be the result of the body resisting having a foreign place in it or it can be for reasons we will never know.

As for your grandmother's shoulder and back pain, if it feels like muscle pain, that should go away in time. If it is sharp pain that comes and goes in an instant, like that of an electrical shock, my money is on that being caused by the pacemaker. The good part is some one that knows what they are doing can make the necessary changes in pacemaker settings to correct that. As for the "thumping" all of my money is on that being improper settings on the pacemaker. I'm with you, PVCs are felt, but never seen unless you are hooked to an EKG, or some similar device at the time.

As for the heart racing, my uneducated guess is that was not caused by the pacemaker, instead it was A-fib or V-fib, which are things the pacemaker cannot control. If it had been the pacemaker I would expect it to maintain the high heart rate for an extended period of time. However, as screwed up as it sounds the settings on her pacemaker could be, it can not be ruled out as being the cause.

I know all of this helps you none, but I say it just to emphasize that your grandmother's problems have happened to others, and some or all can be caused by her pacemaker not having the optimum settings.

If she continues to have problems that you or she thinks is caused by the pacemaker, problems that her doctor seems unable to correct, I suggest that you ask to have a manufacturer's representative take a look at the setting on her pacemaker. I had to resort to this and while I expected an untold amount of resistance from the doctor, I got none. To get this help I emailed the manufacturer (Medtronic) of my pacemaker and asked if I could have a rep take a look at my PM. They took it from there. The doctor's pacemaker nurse/technician was present during this session but appeared to be there to learn and did not interfere.

I wish your grandmother the best,

Smitty

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