Sharp pain at implant site

Hi I'm Galytea and I'm 18, I got my pacemaker 3 years ago and today I got a sharp pain at my implant site when I moved my left arm has this happened to anyone and what is it? I'm 100% a hypochondriac so it has me very worried. The pain went away after about 10 minutes but very unsettling for me.

1 Comments

I'm guessing here...

by crustyg - 2020-05-02 05:07:09

3 years after implantation, this type of pain at the PM pocket might well be the anchor stitch tearing out.  Your EP doc would have put a single, strong, non-absorbable suture through a special hole in the PM to anchor the PM box to the back/bottom of the pocket.  This stops the PM from turning over (and ultimately damaging the lead(s)), and it stops the PM wandering around your chest.

But it's possible for this suture to tear out of the underlying tissue - which *will* hurt.  Depending on how tender the area is now, you *may* be able to detect more mobility of the PM in its pocket (depends a lot on how much scar tissue there is around the PM).

If this is what's happened, does it matter?  Again, depending on the scar tissue nothing may really change, or you may find that your PM starts to migrate, in which case you will eventually need a little op (under local) to put another anchor stitch in.  Given the normal growth and bodily changes in teenage years I suspect that this is not that uncommon for younger patients, so it's just one of those things associated with growth and exercise.  Not great for you, but that's life!

HTH.

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