Discomfort 2 months after pm

Hi, I got a pacemaker on 9/24/13 for bradycardia. Prior to getting the pm I would have recurring pain in left arm and tingling on the left side of face. Several test showed all was well, they found no problems when I would go to er. After seeing my cardo doc and telling something was wrong he did find that I had bradycardia, hence the pm. Left arm pain went away. Now they closed me with the super glue. I found one stitch last week and tried to pull but it seems pretty tight. Since I did that I am now getting my pain back. Strange, did I do something? I don't go to doc till February.

3 Comments

soreness

by Tracey_E - 2013-11-30 09:11:16

It's unlikely pulling on a stitch did anything to your back. Hindsight now, but it's best not to pull them. I was told snip as close as possible then put a dab of bacitracin on.

Your'e normal

by Theknotguy - 2013-11-30 10:11:25

Yeah, I get the pain too. They put the PM on my left side. The "pocket: in which it resides healed tight so I get pain when I'm out walking. Mostly a stretching feeling.

I also get a pain in my back in the trapezoid area. Two things may be causing it. 1) the PM is pushing on the muscles in my pectoral area and that's causing sympathetic pain in my back. 2) the nerves in the vein where my leads go in under the collar bone are still sensitive. I sometimes get pain in my left lower jaw and I attribute that to the leads in the vein.

I had extensive work done on my teeth due to a crooked jaw. Long story won't go into it here. Found out pain in the upper teeth can cause pain in the pectoral region. Pain in the lower teeth can cause pain in the trapezoidal area. Everything is related due to the way the embryo develops. So you may be getting sympathetic pain from implantation of the PM and insertion of the leads. We don't normally have feelings in those areas so the brain is trying to adapt. A "Hey, what's going on here?" notification.

I had one physical therapist who put a cold compress on my back and then rubbed the sore spot in my back and that really helped. Got a prescription from my cardio guy to see a massage therapist. Haven't gone yet but it should help.

Mostly I just acknowledge the pain, sneer at it and go on.

Was in the shower this AM, stretched my left arm and got a tearing pain in the collar bone area. Hmmm. Won't stretch that way again. Feel OK but my body was telling me I can't do that just yet.

Since I got the PM under severe circumstances (I was, in essence, dead.) I mostly discount the pain. Every minute for me is a bonus minute, every day a bonus day.

Hang in there. It gets better.

Theknotguy

Thanks

by Mandi - 2013-11-30 11:11:28

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate this forum with so many helpful people. I am learning a lot more about the pm than the doc has told me. He always answers my questions but I don't know what I don't know. LoL

You know you're wired when...

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