Pacemaker lead infection

• by bionic_laura
• 2008-01-10 10:01:37
• Complications
• 2542 views
• 4 comments

Hi all,

Back in october I posted that I was having my pacemaker leads and box changed due to a fracture in the lead. Well it's now january and I'm only getting back to my computer now after all the complications I've had.

After my surgery I had two new leads and a new pacemaker box inserted. The old lead had pulled out a bit but they had to leave most of it still inside. About two weeks later I noticed I was breathless when walking so I went back to the doctors about it. I was given antibiotics but it didn't go away and I got sicker. So I was admitted to hospital and I didn't leave for the next two months.
After undergoing every test the hospital had I finally had a transesophageal echo where they could see vegetation on one of the pacemaker leads. They knew I had an infection from the blood tests now they could see where it was coming from. I started a range of three antibiotics, one oral and two were IV. I had many many blood tests and had about twenty cannulas inserted by the time I left hospital.

It was decided that they would remove the pacemaker and the leads to be sure of ridding me of the infection. I was transferred to another hospital for this. Where I live there aren't many surgeons who are capable of removing pacemaker leads but I was going to the best guy so that reassured me. They removed the leads but unfortunately two tiny bits of wire were so embedded they couldn't remove them. The operation wasn't so bad and I recovered in about a week. After the operation my heart started going too fast. There was no sign of my bradycardia or heart block which the doctors found very strange.

I continued on my antibiotics after the operation. Four weeks after the operation things started to go wrong. I developed a high temperature and they were worried that the infection was back and that the antibiotics weren't working. At the end of the fifth week I started having a bad reaction to one of my antibiotics. The antibiotic was changed. By the start of the sixth week I had a horrible itchy all over rash, constant nausea, diarrhoea and my temperature was hitting 40 celsius (104 fahrenheit).

I was very sick now and transferred back to the other bigger hospital. I have never felt as awful as I did during that week. They thought that the infection was getting worse or else that I was having a bad allergic reaction to the antibiotics. They decided to stop all the antibiotics. About two days later I started to feel better. I had another echo that showed that the small piece of pacemaker lead had some vegetation on it.

So now even though I feel ok there is the chance the infection will come back. If that happens they will remove the piece of wire and that involves open heart surgery. I also still need to have more surgery to put the pacemaker back in but that will be next month.

Anyway thanks for reading my saga, it's helped to put this short version of it out there.

Bionic Laura