Graham 1

Ihave been told that my atrial lead is not working and has been switched off. (whatever that means) I know nothing about the procedure but hear that, after six months or so,the old lead is left in.If so, how come the vein isn't blocked and what happens if you need a third replacement? Is it possible to keep going on the ventral lead (I had complete heart block in 2009) since that is where the problem is/was?
All this on top of brachytherapy!
Regards, Graham.

1 Comments

pacing

by Tracey_E - 2011-02-04 11:02:55

If you have av block, you're probably not really using the atrial lead much if at all. With av block our sinus node (atrial beat) generally works perfectly normal but the signal gets lost on the way to the ventricle, so we pace ventricle. Leaving an impaired lead turned on will drain the battery so if you don't really need it, it's easier to turn it off than remove it. So, yes it's entirely possible for you to get by just fine on your ventricle lead!

Veins are elastic and move, and leads are small and slick so the blood gets through just fine. They eventually adhere to the walls with scar tissue, that's why they don't come out easily after the first 6mos to a year, but they can be taken out if we run out of room in there. They use a laser sheath that cuts the old lead away from the scar tissue, it's called an extraction.


I have av block also and my ventricular lead went bad. I kept it for another 5 years but had a very short battery life. It worked, it just killed the battery so we kept an eye on it rather than rushing to fix it. When I had my last replacement, I got a new lead. They did a venogram first to make sure I had room the vein for a third lead. I did, so they capped off the bad one and put the new one in the same vein with the other two. If there hadn't been room for the new lead, I would have had the old ones extracted and started fresh.

You know you're wired when...

Your ICD has a better memory than you.

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