Should i be worried?

HELLO :)
I hope someone out there can help me.

I'm 22 years old and i've had my pacemaker since i was 13. Its positioned just under my left armpit. I've never had any problems with it until it came to a box change last year due to the battery. Ever since i had the operation its been giving me no end of pain. Everything i do, whenever i move or even lye down its painful. Because of this i convinced my surgeon to operate on me agin, simply to just reposition the box to see if this helps, however it didnt, and i'm still in pain. So much so that one particular part of my pacemaker is poking out of my skin its bruised me. Anyway... not long after my repositioning operation i noticed that the scar where my leads were placed had developed a boil like shape and was very sore. I was told by doctors that my leads had caught an infection. I was put on IV anti-biotics for a week and was operated on again to clean the infected area. That was over a month ago, and for a few weeks everything was fine. However, i'm now starting to notice that the scar on my leads has hardened dramitically and started to give me yet more pain. I'm concerned that the infection has come back, but there are no obvious signs of this being the case.

Can anyone suggest anything?
Will i constantly be in pain?

Thank you

1 Comments

PM Erosion

by donb - 2012-02-22 06:02:46

Hi Katie, Sorry to read of your problem with your PM site.
Sadly this is very uncommon for a young person especially with only the 2nd PM. I had this happen with my 3rd PM after 17 years. It was about a year after it was implanted & it was removed. I had all tests for infection & given antibiotics but lucked out not having a bad infection started.

In my case my Cardiologist had not had many patients with this problem and he used the "wait & see" approach. I should have gone and had another opinion at the time. AS it turned out I then had it removed and my 4th PM implanted on my right side along with another pair of leads. My old leads were left in place and a plastic surgeon restored my old site by removing all the scar tissue with the 1st surgery and 1 month later had to do it over to remove the huge terminal caps and the coil of excess leads which had eroded again. As I'm a skinny male he added some "lady pading". Turned out OK but with all the antibiotics I picked up the bad hospital bug which took 1 year to clean up.

So, this might sound scarry to you, but I just want to encourage you to not waste too much time with the wait & see attitude. As I'm a real old PM person and was very fortunate in recovery. Had I been a member of this site at the time & used the "search" I would have saved a number of surgeries. I had 4 surgeries in 2 months time. With my last of 2 surgeries I took my plastic surgeon aside & told him I want the excess hardware removed, don't want my old leads disturbed, just cut of the troublesome hardware U restore the site like you would normally treat any boob restoration. Yes, I really enjoy my right chest implant even being right handed. Hopefully you can get your implant taken care of, real SOON!! donb

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Member Quotes

I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for pacemakers. I've had mine for 35+ years. I was fainting all of the time and had flat-lined also. I feel very blessed to live in this time of technology.