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lifting arm.
- by jpeter04
- 2012-11-24 02:11:31
- Surgery & Recovery
- 1404 views
- 4 comments
I got my defibrillator put in Nov 7th. My six weeks will be up Dec 19. But i have already caught myself stretching my arm or just cocking my elbow. I'm scared i could of pulled a lead. I just want to know if anyone else did this often and they were o
Still ok? I really can't afford to add additional weeks to myself. I mostly do this when sleeping and the sling isnt required anymore and is extremely uncomfotable sleeping with.
4 Comments
ok
by Tracey_E - 2012-11-24 08:11:28
we've all done that! As Don said, after the first few days it's just precaution. Make sure you move your arm normally other than lifting and higher than your head, you don't want to get frozen shoulder
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Arm Lifting restrictions
by donr - 2012-11-24 07:11:21
Welcome to the world of inflated problems!
At 17 days, you should be safe from all but the most strenuous activities w/ that arm. Look down at the scar/wound where they opened up your chest to insert the PM. Pretty well knitted together, isn't it? Note that I said nothing about pretty! Well, I imagine that your heart implant sites are just as well healed as your chest is.
Just rolling around & stretching in bed while you are asleep is nowhere near near as violent as, say, swinging from the dining room chandelier by the arm on the PM side while eating a banana w/ the other hand. Or running away to the circus & joining the "Flying Wallendas" trapeze act.
If you took a poll of the membership, I'd hazard that nearly all of us did exactly what you've done.
Dunno what you mean about cocking your elbow. The usual restriction is all about the shoulder - no raising the elbow ABOVE the shoulder for 6 weeks & no lifting of any weight more than about 5-10 lbs for the same period. After about the 2nd day, you are probably safe from what you have described - that is IF the surgeon did his job properly.
Just about all lead implant failures occur very soon after the procedure & are caused by a poor implant that did not get the lead ends into the wall sufficiently well enough to stay.
With all the slack in the leads between where they attach to the ICD case & where they are fixed to the heart wall it would be very difficult to pull that tight enough to put much tension on the implant sites. Stop & think for a moment about what the implant sites are exposed to - every second, when your heart beats, those leads inside the heart chambers are pretty violently tugged at by turbulent, swirling flowing blood as it fills the chambers & then is forcefully ejected.
Don