Scar Pain

So I had my second ICD implanted this past July so it’s been about six months. My original implant was in Nov of 2005 and I don’t remember having this much pain. The scar hurts soooo bad.  Sometimes I am just sitting still and it will start throbbing, it’s so sharp and hurts so bad. Does anybody else have this problem?  My doctors say the only way to fix all the pain is either go in and scrape out all the scar tissue or move the device to under the muscle.  It hurts a lot but I just don’t know if I want to have surgery again.  What is everybody’s opinion or what have other people done?

2 Comments

Pain

by ElectricFrank - 2011-01-28 02:01:32

It should have settled down by now. My suspicion is that one of the leads has a ragged edge or point sticking out where it enters the pacer. There really isn't much that can be done other than surgery although it should be minor.

I've had a similar sensation with mine on occasion, but nowhere as severe. It usually happens after some unusual activity and is gone in a day or two.

frank

Scar Pain

by donb - 2011-01-28 06:01:13

I had somewhat similar experience with my 3rd PM a couple years ago. As I'm a keloid patient where developing scar tissue is a normal after any surgery, I also developed a lot of it around my 3rd PM and finally eroded and had to be removed. My surgeon was not able to clean up my site so he referred me to a plastic surgeon. He did not address my lead terminals properly and I ended up with the same problem you're having. After only a few weeks the sharp terminal eroded again and another surgery was done by my plastic surgeon. This time he removed the terminal ends and the excess leads loop & restored my site properly.

Within 2 months of removing my PM I had a complete new PM implant on my right side along with another pair of new leads by another Cardiologist who did an excellant job. I can't stress enough on communicating with your Dr. about his approach to taking care of your problem. Removal of scar tissue in the pouch area, re-installation of another PM is not always within the expertise of the average PM surgeon, especially with a lot of scar tissue involved. My Cardiologist forwarded the job to a plastic surgeon, sometimes a good Cardiologist will work with a plastic surgeon. Hopefully your problem can be easily taken care of. I could go into more detail about hospital policy but your Dr. is probably right in his plan of going deeper under muscle as you probably were told it would take a little more time to heal. Anyhow, time heals all. Good Luck! donb

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