confused

This past March, my alarm went off on my ICD. My leeds had fractured once again. This was the 3rd replacement surgery that I have had since 2006. For some reason, my leeds keep breaking, and I'm confused as to why they do so. I'm very tired of having the surgeries every year or so, and would just like to have a working system. My most recent surgery they put St. Jude leeds in, and say they are the most reliable ones on the market currently. Any input on why my leeds keep fracturing? Any information about St. Jude Leeds? I'm optomistic that I won't have a replacement again until it is time to change the battery. Hopefully St. Jude works!!

2 Comments

St. Jude leads?

by Nevada Silver - 2010-06-24 05:06:20

I had a pacemaker from 2001-2006 then to a St. Jude ICD. Last week it had to be changed after 3 1/2 yrs. They had warned me that the battery was getting very low. I asked how I would know when I might be in trouble. The tech then attempted to show me what the "alarm" would feel like to me and NOTHING! Tried more than once! He called St. Jude then and they suggested a few things and nothing worked! Bring on the anxiety... I have been telling my Cardiologist, (3) diff. ER doc's that I have been feeling my heart have moments of pumping very hard with shortness of breat and some dizziness. They look at the cardiac monitor, listen to my heart and tell me it's not happening and that it must be stress! ??? Ok...I had my first follow-up appt. yesterday for the new ICD..I asked the RN that does the test if any other of her patients complain of these sympton's? She said yes and explained that it's an issue with the leads. There are (2) leads, i upper and 1 lower. The upper lead gets out of sync with the lower lead which in turn automatically deactivates the upper lead...Got all this???? :-) This often can be corrected with "fine tuning" the ICD. In my case, this is not possible...I really don't know why that is...She told me it was not a threat to my heart, but something I will live with...I hope this helps...it's not easy to understand. It's referred to as "far afield". I haven't looked it up yet...but let me know if you find out anything....Good luck and I'm sorry you have to go through this as well...sometimes it isn't easy is it!
Nevada Silver
Carol

Bad Leads!!

by donb - 2010-06-24 05:06:56

I don't think have answers on leads failing but I always worried for years of fracturing them as I worked electronics all my life along with appliances knowing how even test gear leads fail after flexing over a period of time. The other reason is I've always been way too active doing everything possible to cause lead failure.

Well it took 17 years before one of my Medtronic leads developed an insulation crack right where it entered my 3rd Medtronic PM. So my Cardiologist just paralleled the leads for support which of course in less than a year erosion started and had to remove my PM. I now have a St. Jude PM and 2 new leads in the right chest.

I was told by both of my Cardiologists that with proper lead routing and attaching PM & leads properly, there should be no problem. Some installations are just not secured with PM's moving around puting stress on lead dress and naturally causing lead failure. As you are just a young person, personally I would get some answers on what your Dr's plans are for a proper install. Hey, this is funny as I was typing, my nurse wife just called and one of my Cardiologist (the good one) grabbed the phone to say Hi to see how I'm doing as he's rubbing her back.
Seriously, you shouldn't have leads fail so soon. donb

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