Interesting day

So, this morning before 8am, I get a call from the pacer clinic that my nightly monitoring showed I may have dislocated my right lead! (HUH?) I didn't think that was possible after 5 1/2 months.
Thankfully, I did not, but they were saying words that I just didn't get. new 2:1 heart block. Atrial Fib. Wenchbak and others I can't remember. They reprogrammed my pm and sent me on my way. I did google the above but that just confused me even more!
Anway, is it possible to pull leads out this far after surgery?

7 Comments

Search this site

by NiceNiecey - 2014-04-08 09:04:45

Hi Momof6.

Go to the search tab at the upper right side of the home page and search for dislodged leads or something similar. I find a lot of info there.

Thank goodness it was a false alarm!

Niecey

How's that DUCK?????

by donr - 2014-04-08 09:04:48

Hi, Mom.

You should NOT be able to dislodge a lead after 5 1/2 months - UNLESS it was NOT implanted correctly. That sucker would be so embedded in scar tissue it's unbelievable.

Which Right Lead? Atrium or Ventricle?

OK - what confused you about what they told you. Lay it out there & we will answer & maybe explain it to you.

Donr

@don

by kmom - 2014-04-09 02:04:03

You certainly have a way of explaining things! But it sure makes it easy to understand!! BTW I love your explainations !

silly duck!

by mom0f6 - 2014-04-09 06:04:28

Thanks Don!
The Damn duck is doing great! She escaped in the yard the other day (along with 7 chickens) and me chasing them all ....well, lets just say I am glad no one had a camera! But, they are all safely back in the coop now.

I thought it would be close to impossible to dislodge it but she freaked me out. She did not say which right lead.

All three of the words above. How did they just now happen or has no one mentioned them before? What is heart block? I read the definition for each thing, but it did not help .
Have a GREAT day!

Terri

Talking about Dumb Ducks...

by donr - 2014-04-09 07:04:59

.....Terri, once upon a time I went on a business trip to Germany & saw a pretty good sized porcelain figurine of a Mute Swan taking off from a lake. I bought it.
Got it home & Wife looked at it & says "You bought THAT?! It's a Dumb Duck!" Thus it was christened & has been called forever.

Ya know, if you got the right kind of PM w/ the appropriate bells, whistles & honking bike horns, you are in fat city. It can be programmed to fix everything but the A-Fib. There is even an Algorithm (No relation to the former VP) that can correct for some forms of A-Fib - generally, A-Fib is NOT correctable by a PM.

Hope it all works out OK for you.

For momof6 & KMom. Glad you liked my explanations. I got lots of practice developing them answering my four kid's questions explaining math & physics while they were in HS.

Donr

At least it wasn't the dead.....

by donr - 2014-04-09 08:04:37

.....of winter - like last week (LOL). No snow to chase chickens around in! You only THINK that there was no one w/ a camera! What about that Drone that was hovering silently overhead, recording the entire event for the amusement of some Homeland Security flack sitting safely in a cave somewhere?

Here's a Q&D (Quick & Dirty) tutorial, simplified for the New Kid on the Block:

1) The heart has two main sections - Top (2 chambers called Atria; RIGHT & LEFT), controlled by a NODE called the SINOATRIAL (SA); & Bottom (2 Chambers called Ventricles; LEFT & RIGHT), controlled by another node called the ATRIAL-VENTRICULAR (AV).

2) The SA node is the master controller; it communicates w/ the AV in hopefully a one-way direction.

3) Either node can mal-function all by its lonesome.

4) The communication between the two nodes can fail, also.

5) there are a whole slew of different types of malfunctions & they all have names. All names have been chosen to confuse the NEWBIE, but to the members of the inner circle who know the secret handshake, they tell a lot. (Stick out your hand - you are about to be initiated into the inner circle!)

6) You started out w/ a SA Node malfunction called Bradycardia (The secret word describing a sloooooooow overall HR), with pauses (A secret word meaning "PAUSES.")

7) They told you that you had an episode of A-Fib (Atrial Fibrillation). That's a secret word meaning that the SA was not functioning & generating the normal signals that made the Atria beat in a coordinated fashion. The two top chambers were beating too fast on their own, in an uncontrolled manner (Like your Dumb Duck running willy-nilly around the yard, wings a-flapping & bill a-quacking). If the A-Fib rate is too high, the Ventricles cannot follow & you get lousy circulation. Bouts of A-Fib can last anywhere from a few beats to hours on end. You can either have NO sensation that they occur or they can make you feel like that stuff your dumb duck drops all over the place & you step in while chasing it in mad frustration. You probably did not sense yours, since when told you had it you said "Huh? Wazzat?"

A-Fib can be dangerous, hence their concern about it. A few beats of it - NBD (No Big Deal). A whole bunch of them & it's possible for tiny blood clots to form in the Aorta (The BIIIG artery leaving the heart to distribute blood to the body). Those clots can get loose & flow to the brain, causing a stroke, with its attendant nasty effects on you. They prescribe a "Blood Thinner" to prevent that by slowing up coagulation into clots.

8) Let's talk Wenckebach next. This is a condition caused by lack of communication between the SA & AV nodes. Just one of several. It is in a class called a "Heart Block." This is a secret word meaning that the signal from the SA traveling to the AV gets blocked or delayed somehow. The signal from SA -AV ALWAYS gets delayed to allow the Ventricles to fill up w/ blood before they contract. In the Wenckebach (Often pronounced "Winky Block" by Americans) situation, that nice, neat, consistent delay gets botched up in a very special pattern. That pattern is such that with each successive beat, the delay gets a little longer, so the Ventricle beat a little later. Finally the delay gets so long that the ventricles just do not contract at all because the heart's control system senses that they would interfere w/ the next beat that the SA is planning & it INHIBITS the Ventricle contraction. You sense it as a totally missed beat. Then the whole routine starts over, until another Ventricle contraction is missed. What you sense is Beat, Beat, Beat, Skip, Beat, Beat, Beat, Skip..... (Or a combination very similar in beat, skip pattern).

The secret word for this mal-function is "Type 2 Heart Block, (Wenckebach). This condition is benign, though perhaps disturbing to the victim. The pattern is nice & regular, though if it goes on for too long, you can feel light-headed & perhaps pass out. A PM corrects this problem very nicely.

9) 2:1 Heart Block. I left it for last because it is most complex. It is another "Type 2 Heart Block." But its pattern is different & can be one of several. The simplest is a situation where every second Ventricular contraction is absent. You would sense Beat, Skip, Beat, Skip.....The 2:1 description comes from the fact that the SA generates TWO signals causing the Atria to contract, but the second signal gets BLOCKED & never reaches the Ventricles to make them contract.

It's sorta an "Either -or" situation w/ the Type 1 Block described in 8) above. This block is NOT benign, so it REALLY catches the Cardio's attention. It is likewise an easy fix w/ a PM, but differs from the case in 8) in that it MUST be fixed because of its frequently progressing into more serious blockages - like a complete block, where NO signal ever gets from the SA to the AV.

OK, so there it is Simplified Heart Problems for Duck Owners.

Hope I helped you out.

Gotta go - a confederate yelled at me to come watch a video of some woman chasing a duck around the yard - said it was hilarious - even better that watching her chop the ice out of a pond so the dumb duck could swim around.

Donr

oh don!

by mom0f6 - 2014-04-09 09:04:08

you crack me up. If me crawling/chasing that duck ever shows up anyway I am not sure if I will die from embarrasement or laugh my extra 10lbs off! yes, I am thankful the snow was gone.

Thank you SO much for the induction into the inner circle. You explained things so they are much easier to understand!
I was told the actual ep/cardiologist will indeed want to see me due to these new developments. Its ironic though, isnt it that I got these new things AFTER the PM?

Thank you again!! and let me know if you ever see said satellite video.

Terri

You know you're wired when...

You name your daughter “Synchronicity”.

Member Quotes

Sometimes a device must be tuned a few times before it is right. My cardiologist said it is like fine tuning a car.