New with questions

Hello all...Medtronic Adapta implanted week and half ago.
My problem is with long pauses while sleeping...perfectly fine while awake. I did not have any symptoms that I knew of and do not feel any different now. Discovered by chance with regular check up. Doc saw extra beat on ekg and had me wear Holter Monitor...this found the pauses while sleeping problem.

Anyway, I do not get how raising your arm pulls on the leads, the leads are not in your arm just in your chest??? I am not going to test this but was just curious.

3 Comments

New

by kiwilab - 2010-12-03 05:12:16

Thanks Smitty, Good pic...Pulling the leads out seems to be my concern for some reason...I guess everyone has their own little worries.

New Pacemaker

by SMITTY - 2010-12-03 12:12:46

Hello Kiwilab,


Welcome to the Pacemaker Club.

Many of us have run into problem of our hearts taking extended rest breaks while we are asleep. The pacemaker usually solves the problem and depending on how frequent yours were, you may find that you are more rested when you get up each morning.

As for raising your arms, the answer to that one should be simple, but to me it is not. Below is part of an article I filched from somebody that tells how a pacemaker is implanted.

"After the area under the patient’s collarbone is numbed, a small incision is made and a “pocket” is fashioned in the tissue overlying the muscle. The leads are inserted through a vein near the site of the pocket, and advanced into the heart using fluoroscopy for guidance. The leads are then attached to the pacemaker which is then placed in the pocket, and the incision is closed."

Now for more on this subject that may make it easier to visualize after you log in go to the upper left side of the page and click on "Member Gallery." When that comes up put in the name "Juan" and click on search. If I’m right about all this you will see a schematic of how a pacemaker is implanted.

Now you can see the muscle (pectoral I think) is right under your pacemaker. That muscle wraps around to the top of your shoulder. Tie all that together and you can see how arm movement can affect the PM leads especially until they are firmly seated in tissue which can take a few weeks.

Now I’m not sure I understand all I know about this but I will agree with you that new leads are something we do not want to test too much with unnecessary arm movement right after we get a PM.

Good luck to you,

Smitty


Pulling on leads

by ElectricFrank - 2010-12-04 12:12:27

This one is simple. If you raise the pacemaker arm above your head and stretch the shoulder raises an inch or two as you reach full extension. The lead wires are hooked to the pacemaker at the upper end and your heart at the lower. If the pacemaker is raised more than the slack in the lead wires it puts a pull on the wires. Keep in mind that your heart is threshing around in your chest so you could run out of slack.

Having said all this, recommended implant procedure calls for leaving some slack in the lead at the pacemaker. It should be difficult to raise the pacemaker high enough to cause a problem. If the truth were known this is likely a warning left over from the early days of pacers. Having worked in the biomedical field myself I can tell you that just changing the warning would likely take about a years worth of study and FDA paperwork.

My feeling has been that gradually increasing the arm movement is more likely give the leads a chance to settle in.

frank

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