Continuing Pain

• by MonteCristo
• 2013-01-12 11:01:39
• General Posting
• 764 views
• 0 comments

Hi Everyone,

In May 2012 I had my pacemaker and atrial lead changed. They were able to put the PM into my muscle bed (where the other two were very superficial and just 'laying' ontop of the muscle. After the surgery I had spent the night in the hospital and had considerable pain right behind my sternum. They kept giving pain meds but it didn't help too much. A day later I was in tamponade and had to have emergency surgery where they opened up the pericardium and put in a drain tube.

Now, since then I have had considerable daily pain in my chest. First it was thought I had pericarditis, then given indocin and subsequent rounds of NSAIDS, but to no avail. The sharp, stabbing pains eventually subsided and I have been left with a dull, heavy pain that never goes away, sometimes I have it high up in my chest like at the level of the first rib. Another pain I have is as if the chest wall was manipulated, sometimes I move and my chest, and ribs 'crack'. Also my chest muscles are much weaker, basically I have no strength.

I have been back and forth to multiple doctors and they can't find anything, just the other day I had a echo stress test and blood work done and they found nothing.

My question is: is it possible that the new atrial lead, that was placed in a different location, could be causing some irritation and pain? All ideas, questions, suggestions are welcomed :-)

Thank you