Problem with shocks from pacemaker.

I had my pacemaker put in on October 2, 2007. The first night after the pacemaker was put in; it started shocking me (it felt like someone was poking the center of my chest with an electrical wire). I was having problems breathing, between shocks, and it was very painful. The nurse (after about an hour) got in touch with my doctor and he prescribed a muscle relaxer. I don't know if I passed out or the shot put me to sleep. The next morning as soon as I was awake, they adjusted my pacemaker. For the next five weeks I would have periods (lasting 3 to 10 seconds), were the pacemaker would shock me the same way (being painful - like I was having a heart attack and hard to breath). I saw a St. Jude Technician and they tested, and then adjusted the pacemaker. They said I am just very sensitive to the shocks. I am still having the same problem and they are happing more often. Has anyone had problems like this or can someone tell me what could cause this problem?

2 Comments

SHOCKS FROM PACEMAKER

by SMITTY - 2008-01-03 03:01:07

Hello Starwolf,

I'll warn you before you start, this is long, probably too long, but your questons struck a very senstive nerve with me.

Yes I have had the same problems you are having and you are correct, YOU ARE BEING SHOCKED BY YOUR PACEMAKER! I am going to make a big guess that the electrical impulse from your pacemaker is stimulating or impinging on a nerve and that is what you are feeling. Don't let a doctor, nurse or St. Jude rep tell you anything different. It can be corrected when you find someone smart enough to make the necessary changes. Before I go off further on my tangent, let me back up and start from where I should have.

The first thing that has to recognized is that while most humans have all of the same parts and those parts are usually located in about the same position in our bodies, but they are not necessarily in exactly the same spot. If they were I guess we would all be the same size and all look alike and wouldn't that be a blast. The importance in not heaving everything in exactly the same location is, let's say you and I get the same PM with the same leads and they are put in as near the same location in our hearts as possible. To me that means what I may feel from my PM you should feel because of the similarity in our PM implant. But, because you and I are slightly different physically, the electrical impulse from our PMs does not go and stay in exactly same place. If they did the electrical impulse from every PM would travel down the lead to the wall of the heart and dissipate in the heart muscle when it made that heart chamber contract.

In your case you say you feel the shocks in the center of your chest. Mine were felt on the right side of my chest at the bottom of my rib cage. I'll go further and say you only feel these shocks sometimes because that is when your PM is sending electrical impulses to make your heart beat. I don't know why you got a PM but for most of us our PM is an on demand device. In other words it sends out an impulse to make our heart beat only when your heart rate drops below the low set point and since yours is not working full time (think goodness) you get a little relief from time to time. You mention you feel these shocks from three to 10 seconds. If you can check your pulse when this is happening and I think you will find the shocks are in sync with your pulse.

As for what can be done, fine tuning your pacemaker is the place to start. Any PM has several hundred possible combinations of settings. Having the power output set al low as possible may help or even stop the impulses from getting to the affected nerve. The next consideration may be relocating the leads. That is what was proposed for me, but I was fortunate enough to have a doctor that suggested before relocating the leads causing the problem that I have an injection in or close to my spine to try and deaden the affected nerve. I did and within a matter of a few hours, my shocks were gone. That was October '05 and I'm just beginning to get some light shocks again. I can live with a lot worse so I'm not concerned about them yet.

The most important thing for you is THE PROBLEM CAN BE FIXED. Don't let anyone tell you it is not your PM (which I heard hundreds of times) or that you are "just very sensitive to the shocks." Hell, we are all sensitive to shocks and it is the job of the people responsible for stopping the shocks. If you cannot get the relief that you should have, since your PM is only a few months old, complain in writing to the doctor, with copies to St. Jude and to the Administrator of the hospital where you had the surgery.

If I sound like a raving maniac, well I'll admit I get outraged when I see people having problems like yours and getting no relief. I lived through five years of hell with mine before getting it fixed. During that time I demanded that it be turned off even though I did not know what the consequences may be. It was off for about 2.5 years before it had to be restarted. When it had to be restarted because of congestive heart failure, I was a little better prepared to ask questions and even be so egotistical as to suggest changes I wanted made. Did my suggestions help, well let's put it this way, they didn't hurt and it did help my feelings knowing that at last I had some input about a device that had controlled my life for too long. So, like I said, these things can happen to the best of us and they can also be corrected.

Now I apologize for my ranting. I hope you can get the help you need and deserve.

Smitty

Smitty

by Starwolf - 2008-01-07 12:01:55

Thank you for the information. What you described is what I think has happen to me. I made the susjestion to my doctor that the leads could be close to a nerve, but he said they were not. The reason for having my PM put in is that my heart rate was getting too low (26 to 36 per minute), my blood pressure would drop and I would get dizzy. I have found that when my heart rate increases to greater then 90 per minute (when I do someing to increase it), then starts slowing down, that the PM will shock me to keep my heart rate above 60 per minute. Again, thanks for the information. At lease now I can tell my doctor this has happen to someone else and what they found causing the problem.

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