Golfing

My Dr. has reservations about me playing golf again. Says if I swing hard he wouldnt recommend me playing again. I wondered about if anyone else has restrictions or is playing regularly and how u are doing?
I just had this put in two weeks ago. I know I cant play for a few months but wondered what happens then.

5 Comments

golfing

by Safetyjoe - 2012-05-19 10:05:06

I play golf have had a pacemaker since 1980 with no problems playing.....

golf

by Tracey_E - 2012-05-20 09:05:54

I live in the golf capitol of the world, we are home to PGA and have more golf courses per capita than anywhere so I think it's safe to say my ep runs into a few golfers. His post op instructions say wait 6 weeks to do any heavy lifting, 3 months to swing a golf club. No restrictions after 3 months.

Your Dr is wrong

by IAN MC - 2012-05-20 11:05:00

I don't know why your doc has any reservations. I was playing normally after 8 weeks. I still slice and miss putts so the PM has made no difference to my normal game ...unfortunately

Cheers

Ian

If you

by walkerd - 2012-05-21 07:05:10

have just had your pm inserted swinging a club could dislodge leads that arent properly seated. Wait six weeks and slowly work back into it, I had open heart and pm inserted a month later I golfed 3 months later in the first week of november. I was cautious. then winter came didnt golf until april or may and play 18 holes once a week. I also dont understand your doctors comment, ASK WHY!!!!

FOUR
lol
dave

I tend to agree w/ IAN - BUT!!!

by donr - 2012-05-26 10:05:50

Do you have some special condition you have not told us about that makes your cardio more leery of golf than the rest of us? Like maybe you only have one arm? Seriously, that could be a significant problem to a cardio, but not to us normally equipped double-armed folks. I throw this out there to ensure that we all know the COMPLETE problem.

Speaking as a non-glofer after several years of attempting it, I can see no reason why after everything getting well secured that you should not be able to play golf.

Two points that support my conclusion:

1) The PM, leads & harpoons in the heart are foreign bodies to the human body. As such your body will do its darndest to isolate them all by creating scar tissue around them, anchoring them firmly in place.

2) The point where the leads enter your subclavian vein HAS to scar over, else you'd bleed through the entry point your entire life & the upper chest area would be full of blood & you'd permanently look like a big fountain pen leaked all over your shoulder area. Those leads are NOT going to move in or out of the vein w/o some major force applied. If your chest looks like mine, there is plenty of slack in the leads between the PM & the vein entry point, so it's gonna be tough for any outside movement to cause the flexible wires to tug at the scar tissue at the entry point.

3) (So, I lied, it's more than 2. ) Read some posts about lead extractions. T'ain't easy to be done! The leads, after a while, are absolutely encapsulated & fixed to the wall inside the vein & have to be taken out by a laser roto-rooter. They are not going anywhere & cannot pull on the harpoons in your heart wall.

4) (Up to being a Damned liar at this point) There is still slack in the lead inside the heart, & it gets thrown all over by the turbulent flow of the blood rushing to & fro in there, so that's not going to be a problem.

5) (Now I'm up to statistician level in lying) Ah, the harpoons themselves! Remember Moby Dick? Capt Ahab stuck a harpoon in his great white flank that withstood a dive & return to the surface w/ Capt Ahab himself tangled in the mess of line. As I recall, the harpoon was waving back & forth as Moby cruised the surface w/ his nemesis attached firmly to his side, his arm waving like it was beckoning the rest of his crew to come w/ him. That should be how well your leads are attached to the inner wall of your heart! That is, if your EP did his job well! Now here could be a reason why he/she objects to golf - something neither you nor the rest of us know? The scar tissue should have them so thoroughly affixed in the walls that they have to be cut out to remove them - could this be a problem not to be spoken of in polite company by your EP?

Personal experience. At 9 weeks post -op, I tried to stop a Jeep Cherokee w/ my right shoulder. The impact was so great that I developed a small, stable aortic aneurysm right at the top of my heart - but my new lead was totally UNAFFECTED! That's how quickly & how thoroughly those things become encapsulated! Now THAT was something that got my cardio's attention & had him worried.

I guess my bottom line is that as long as you have healed long enough, you have no special considerations & you have a smooth swing, there should be no reason at all why you shouldn't play golf eventually. Sorry about the ramble, but I'm an engineer, not a golfer. You asked what time it was - & I just HAD to tell you how your watch works first.

Don

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My pacemaker is intact and working great.