pain at the sternum

I had my pm installed on the 26th. Everything went fine. Left the hospital on the 27th. I am staying at home and up to yesterday evening, no pain AT ALL, not even at the incision side(right hand side). Then past night, I woke up with difficulties breathing, each breath was painful at the sternum level. The chest and the sternum were yellow blue, more than before. So, since 4 oclock in the morning, I started monitoring my blood pressure and pulse, every 2 hours. Everything was absolutely normal. I emailed my doctor at 4:00PM and he almost immediately called me. He prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and pain killer and gave me an appointment for tomorrow noon at the hospital. Hence, he thinks no emergency but, I was wondering if any, experienced the same kind of pain post-op. the doctor thinks there is an inflammation around the heart. Any comments?

Thanks

Mounir

4 Comments

pain at the sternum

by mounirm - 2012-05-01 10:05:01

Hi Susan,

Thanks for your comment. It eased my worries because, I just had tried to lay down in bed and I could not breathe in the flat position and the pain was WOW!
I was thinking of going to the emergency but, I will wait for my tomorrow appointment and will try to sleep sitting on a lazyboy.
I have the antiinflammatory, will take another pill in 2-3 hours and if the pain is too strong, I have some dilaudid pills.

Thanks

Could possibly be

by Shortcake - 2012-05-01 10:05:48

Pericarditis. I had this hit me once after a pacer implant. I was doing fine and about a week later this pain hit. Sounds like exactly what you described. They gave me anti-inflammatory drugs. Said it wasn't emergency but was truly painful! Took about another week to clear up.

Hope you are feeling better soon!
Susan

Pericardia

by mounirm - 2012-05-04 03:05:27

Just came out after 48 hours at the emergency. The pain at the sternum was a pericardia caused by the surgery. It is an inflammation of the 'heart" due to traumatism when installing the leads. It is a rare but possible side effect of the surgery. It is treated with high dosage of anti-inflammatory drugs and at the beginning with morphine to calm down the pain; an excruciating pain.
Now, the pain is ok and I still have my cortisone drug for a few more days.
Hope this will help.

Mounir

It is definitely painful

by Shortcake - 2012-05-04 10:05:16

I think they should give us a warning for the possibly of this but of course, they don't. I could not figure how what was going on when that first hit. I was doing fine and wham!
Hope you are feeling better soon! The anti-inflammatory drugs were a life saver for this, glad you got this diagnosed.
Susan

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