lead

Hi anyone have a lead pull out of heart wall and if so is it a big deal to correct.Thank you P.S have my pacemaker 3 months

7 Comments

Kind of

by boatman50 - 2008-02-29 12:02:07

Mine didn't pull out, the surgeon put it thru the heart wall. 2 days later I ended up in a different hospital and they put in 2 new leads. I was out for the entire thing and the only problem was increased healing time because of 2 operations back to back. I took it easy for a long time!
Boatman

Kind of

by boatman50 - 2008-02-29 12:02:08

Mine didn't pull out, the surgeon put it thru the heart wall. 2 days later I ended up in a different hospital and they put in 2 new leads. I was out for the entire thing and the only problem was increased healing time because of 2 operations back to back. I took it easy for a long time!
Boatman

Kind of

by boatman50 - 2008-02-29 12:02:08

Mine didn't pull out, the surgeon put it thru the heart wall. 2 days later I ended up in a different hospital and they put in 2 new leads. I was out for the entire thing and the only problem was increased healing time because of 2 operations back to back. I took it easy for a long time!
Boatman

Interesting You Should Bring This Up

by TwoCents - 2008-02-29 12:02:39

I just returned from having my first check since my 2nd pm was implanted in December. The tech noticed that my threshold value has more than doubled to 2.7. He postulated that when my new pm was implanted that the lead was pulled some away from the heart muscle, so that the connection wasn't quite as tight. He said this sometimes happens and in my case the old pm had migrated some and needed to be repositioned with a pocket revision. He said the increase in threshold could significantly affect battery life and that there was some sort of procedure to place it back in good contact with the heart muscle. I have no idea if this makes sense or not or what the procedure would be to strengthen the connection. I have sinus node dysfunction and pace 100% in the atria and 40% in the ventricle. As I understand it the ventricle lead is the one affected. I would be interested in any discussion on this also. TwoCents

oh, oh! (just kidding)

by aldeer - 2008-02-29 12:02:53

Just trying to take it lightly, but my cardiologist said he was hesitant to give me a pm (I do have an av node ablation and pm) because of all my swimming and wear & tear of lead. I asked him what would happen if the lead came out and his remark.."You would be without a heart".... I have cut my swimming from 6 days a week to four or five and just take it easy and increase my walking. My ep and primary said to go ahead and swim. Guess I could sit in my rocking chair, but that doesn't sound like fun! I have only one lead. aldeer

sorry about that

by boatman50 - 2008-02-29 12:02:57

don't know what happened there!

Depends.....

by swilson10 - 2008-03-01 05:03:09

Two times my atrial lead has been displaced and the ventricle was reportedly pulled back from typical placement at the time of extraction. Each of these displacements created the need for more surgery and in the end I required lead extraction and replacement of the whole PM unit, leads, etc. The surgeon who did my most recent operation indicated that he believed I had so much trouble with the leads b/c the physicians who placed them originally were not accounting for the "length" of my torso and so the standard give allowed on the leads did not take into account what would happen when I was upright and my diaphragm had dropped into place therefore allowing my organs to shift. It made sense and I have not had any problems with these new leads for almost 9 months.

Also, I am paced only around 30-40% so when the atrial lead was not working they would shut it down and pace me only in the ventricle, which was very uncomfortable, but not nearly as bad as the 'shock" I was getting from the displaced lead. This allowed me time to schedule and prepare for the next surgery. I too had the puncture in the heart wall boatman talked about and that did create an emergency situation, but the doctor did that not the lead. Best wishes!!

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