Placement of pacemaker

I learned that a patient opted to have the pacemaker implanted in a deeper muscle layer. What are the issues involved in this decision?


2 Comments

A brief list

by crustyg - 2021-02-01 11:18:46

1  Willingness of EP-doc to defer to your wishes

2  More pain and slower healing from the implant site

3  Considerably longer for implantation - sub-dermal pocket creation is pretty quick

4  Better cosmetic result for thin folk with PM beneath Pec Major, or for the smaller female folk less obvious on the bust line.

5  Probably not suitable for a local-only implantation.

Search for this on previous threads.  It's not always possible, *especially* for 2nd and subsequent PMs (not an issue for you).  And some EP-docs just refuse to listen.  Avoid them.  There are a *few* EP-docs who farm the actual implantation out to other surgeons (it used to happen a lot) and it's very easy for this type of critical request to be lost if this happens.

I just had this done!

by TraJac71 - 2021-02-03 20:39:09

OMG ~ I just had a pocket revision where they went to my lower chest wall under the pectoralis to bury the device. For me, it was 100% the right thing to do! And I only got my original PM 6 months ago!!

I didn't care about the asthetics of it, but I was having SO much constant pain in my left neck and left chest area. I'm talking level 9 pain all day. EVery day. It was unbearable and I was seriouslygetting depressed at the pain I was in. I eventually was sent to a thoracic surgeon who said we could try burying it deeper and hopefully that would work. It was a crapshoot, none of were sure it was going to work, but I had to do something.

It was seriously painful. He warned me that it would be and I'm a month out from that and still have soreness, BUT, it was the best decision I could have made.

I don't know the criteria for sub pec for other people, but I wouldn't hesitate having it done that way.

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