Choosing new lead to put in...

• by tsiebert
• 2013-06-17 07:06:48
• Batteries & Leads
• 1796 views
• 1 comments

I am 33 years old and had a St Jude ICD put in in 2005, along with a now recalled Riata lead. Last summer I was asked to take an xray (as recommended by St Jude after the recall was announced) to see if the wire have externalized. They took a look at the xray and determined that everything was still intact and said they would monitor it. I just got my new generator put on mid-May and before they sedated me they decided to run a fluoroscopy which revealed that the wires had in fact become externalized. I was referred to thoracic surgeon who has removed approx 1500 leads (50 of them the Riata) and have my extraction surgery for mid-July. I asked him what lead he was considering putting in and he gave me a list of 4 that he regularly uses but was leaning towards the Durata. He said he would put in whatever I wanted though. My question for you all is 1) If anyone has had a Riata extracted and what you replaced it with and 2) What are your feelings about the Durata since it is another St Jude product that is considered "controversial"? Thanks so much