Most Recent Messages in Surgery & Recovery

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Walking

I am getting my PM on May 15th for bradycardia that causes fatigue and swimmy head. (That is what I like to call it) I am a healthy, active 42 year old that loves to speed walk and do races. Every summer I participate in a walking program that gets us prepared for a 10 mile walk that takes place the end of August. During the summer we meet every Tuesday and walk several miles until we get up to the 10 mile mark. It starts today. Today is just a small walk and next week we walk 3 miles, then a...

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Recovery period

Hello I am new to the forum. Last week arrived at hospital feeling
unwell felt as though i was going to pass out. After Ecg i was rushed
into resusitation and given intravenous drugs to increase my heart rate and stabilise it which was very eratic very high and very low.
It was explained to me i had Third degree heart block and needed
a pacemaker as emergency treatment. Felt a massive improvement
staight away but since returning home have felt very tired and sore

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2nd degree Block and PM

Hi Everyone, I wont go into great detail about why I'm scheduled for PM on May 20th but I'll try to give the quick facts and hopefully someone can provide some advise. I'm 32, female, I have 2nd degree type I AV Block as a result of the EP causing damage to my AV node during the last Ablation. And though 2nd degree type I should be benign and symptom free, that I certainly am not. So they have told me that the only way to treat my symptoms and increase my heart rate is to place a PM. They've...

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What's normal....

I had my 1st pacemaker fitted 3 weeks ago. It is a Medtronic dual lead and I take bisoprolol every day. It was set at 60 after surgery but had to be readjusted to 90 2 days later. I'm still having a lot of palpitations and feel really exhausted all the time. Breathlessness and dizzy spells have all stopped...it just doesn't feel right. I feel very uncomfortable in the centre of my chest too. It's another 10 days before my next check up and just wondered if any one else had experienced anything l...

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Two weeks out

I first wrote when I was told by the second cardiologist that I needed a pacemaker. Short bio, 55 yr old female, exercise daily, fit, healthy with no symptoms. Pacemaker??? Problem was 34 bpm average but no fainting, light headedness etc. Two leaky valves and normal blood pressure. I was shocked, scared and clueless about pacemakers. This forum helped ALOT!!!

I had surgery on the 17th of April 2014, and was implanted with a Biotronek dual lead with the aid of a plastic surgeon...

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Soreness after implantation

Hello, new here. I am a 76 year old male with Sinus bradycardia and Sick Sinus Syndrome and I am on a low dosage of Sotalol to control my afib/aflutter. I just had a Boston College K174 pacemaker implanted 2 days ago. Everything seemed to go well and the x-ray showed everything normal with the pacemaker placement. Since coming home yesterday, I have been a little surprised with the amount of pain I am experiencing at the implantation site. As long as I am sitting or lying in a stable pos...

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Getting the works on Monday

Scared. I am 46 years old. I have a medronic pacemaker with two leads. The bottom lead either has too much scar tissue or it is fractured and has been termed lead failure. The upper lead is pacing 22% of the time. The episode read for the last month was >254 as I guess it can't record more than that number. On Monday the 5th of May I will have lead extraction and all new "stuff" put in, this time a St. Jude's as that's the contract the hospital carries. Same surgeon as 6 years ago. I'm s...

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Incision site still sore

Hi there, I'm new to this and the world of pacemakers so please bear with me. I'm a 46 year old female, I was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor sometime ago, however it flared up leading me to be hospitalized, due to the swelling in my head and the wrong signals being sent to my body they couldn't keep my heart rate up, I was moved to the ICU unit, where my heart dropped to 21bpm, a pacemaker was the only option at that time so they operated inserting a MRI surescan because of the tumor issues....

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post op symptoms

I had my first duel lead Medtronic pm placed this past Friday for a conginital 3rd degree heart block. I know it's only been two days but I'm still dizzy like I was before the surgury. I am also having some sudden pounding heart beats and I'm exhausted. Everyone told me how amazing I would feel but I don't. I called the on call cardiologist who took 35 minutes to call back and treated me like I was a bother. She said "I can't help you over the phone so go to the ER if you don't feel good". I kno...

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Operation

Hello.

I am a 25 year old man from Norway, so excuse my english if it isn`t that good;). I got my pacemaker (the little one) about two years ago. Lately I've gotten big complexes so i have decided having an pacemaker-operation to have it placed under the muscle. My "doctor" is though very skeptical about it, and says that it is like "playing with your life", and that one day the chances that it goes really bad(!) is extremely high. But i want to do this more than anything in my life,...

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scar from pacemaker implant

I'm healing ok but am curious... do other's here have a portion of their scar look like the skin was melted? Do the doctors do something when closing the incision to make it easier for them to find it 10 years down the road when the unit needs repacing?

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Hi I'm new here

I just had a Medtronic Advisa DR MRI Sure Scan PM inserted February 19th, 2014. I had a heartbeat of 24 and was basically assymptomatic. I had some difficulty walking my normal pace, and a bit of light headedness, but no more than I normally have on my other medication. I did have an episode of chest pain, combined with fatigue etc. on Valentine's Day on a walk. The next day I was dizzy and had problems going from sitting to standing.

Sunday I was feeling better, but I'd promise...

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Pacemaker implant

Appreciate feedback re implanting pacemaker under muscle if taking routinely a blood thinner...xaralto

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Why does my heart beat so hard?

I'm 13 and just came home from the hospital yesterday after getting a pacemaker for my diagnosis of Complete Heart Block. My left side doesn't hurt really where they cut me, but the most pain I am having is that my heart seems to beat SO HARD that it hurts most of all. I can feel it inside and you can see it beating when you look at my skin. It really hurts bad. What is this and has anyone else had this pain before? I'm worried. My mom is taking me today to see the Dr. again, but I feel like he...

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Anyone else had these surgeons?

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone on here ever had surgery with Dr. Byrd at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL OR with Dr. Carrillo at University of Miami hospital in Miami, Fl?? Dr Byrd put my device on the right side then put the leads in using the "purse string" procedure. I had multiple issues with the generator being on my right side-it wouldnt stay in the pocket. Finally, it was moved back to the left, but the leads were left because they felt it was too dangerous to pu...

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CRTD Fitted

Hi all, new to the forum, had a CRTD fitted in early April. I have cardiomyopathy and AF so desperately needed something to improve my quality of life. Over the past 18 months I have been retaining water to the point I had gained over 1 stone 7 pound in weight and my ankles looked like elephant legs! Well, four days after fitting I have now lost 7 pounds, I can see my ankles and I am starting to feel like a human being again. The pain in the shoulder is also starting to abate now but it's go...

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Pacemaker recovery

Hi. I am very new to all this. I had a pm placed just over a week ago and although I have had cancer surgery, complicated neck surgery this wound seems more painful than the lot! People say you forget about pain and maybe I have it wrong but the site where the pm is was incredibly bruised - it has gone down a lot but the wound site is still really painful. Is this normal? My implantation had to be done twice because they found one of the leads did not respond properly - this was straight after s...

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swelling

Received my PM March 25. Wondering how long for the swelling to go down? Had my first check up last Friday and the doctor said it looks good.

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pacemaker


I'm in my second week of having a pace maker. When I don't have a bra on like at night and I get up my breast pulls down and causes pain. I would like to know how long this will last?

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I'm going in!

Well, a second diagnosis later I've decided to go ahead with the surgery. My new pacemaker, who btw I've named Julia (love my girlfriends, right?), is being implanted next Thursday, on the 17th. Prayers are especially appreciated. The second doctor was much nicer, great bedside manner but he was so "informative" it scared the crap out of me. My husbands look of relief when I said "ok" was all the validation I needed.

I'm scared to death. I've heard about no going back, being li...

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