Lead Erosion...?

Hello. Well, I ended up back in the hospital on Friday for the second time since my implant in June. This time it's for suspected lead erosion..(?). Basically, the lead is starting to come up through my skin at the incision site. Half of my incision has a very thin layer of skin (I can feel the lead connection if I press on it...don't worry, I'm not actually doing that now), the consistency of a blister, and I have occasional new types of pain at the site. This got worse on Friday which is when I also noticed that I could feel the lead so I called my doc, they sent me to the hospital, etc. They did a blood culture and didn't find an infection so I'm at home now, but they're opening me back up tomorrow (Monday) to try some repositioning. They said the cause for this might have been the infection I had a few months ago, or, my thought - the surgeon who did the implantation didn't know what he was doing? The new doc also said the placement of the pacer itself didn't look right from the outside (it looks ok to me cosmetically), so maybe it just wasn't done well...? He said there will be plastic surgeons there Monday to help with some minor reconstruction and they will also biopsy some tissue to make sure there isn't an infection.

This is all rather bizarre and frustrating to me. This is my fourth pacemaker, but the first one in my chest (others were in my abdomen), and I've never had complications before. I'm also, in the very back of my mind, wondering if my month-long cough caused it, although I would hope these things would be able to withstand most bodily functions. After my cough subsided I was finally feeling like everything was on track, and now this...

Another thing that worries me is that yet another doctor (the one I saw at my EP's office) said it was very important that the lead not come through the skin before they could get to it - if it did then everything would have to be taken out and redone. And yet, it's not important enough to do over the weekend -_- It still looks the same but hurts more now.

Has anyone else had this happen, or head of this happening?

Sorry for my long-winded-ness....

2 Comments

Chest vs Abdomen

by donb - 2013-11-25 03:11:36

Hi Arch Girl, Hopefully by now you've had reconstruction done as your site. In my PM message to you I didn't really go through all my previous bouts with my chest pacemaker sites problems. A few weeks ago I had to go back to my cardiologist for a prescription refill & he filled me in with lots of info as why I had erosion problems more than normal in the past 22 years.
As you have had abdomen implant before without erosion it's far more common in chest implants especially if your body build won't house a pacemaker properly. I'm most interested to hear how you did with your appointment. As in my case I could have had reconstruction in either or both chest areas but just was not practical & my specialist chose to do my abdomen implant. I did not loose any sleep in recovering & also am really happy to sleep in any position with no discomfort.
Don

Still waiting...

by ArchGirl09 - 2013-11-26 10:11:28

After telling me I would definitely have surgery on Monday, they pushed it back to Wednesday (tomorrow), so I'm still waiting to find out exactly what the problem is. I was never told about the increased risk for erosion...I wish I had been. Even though my pain had drastically decreased from when I had my surgery, it never completely went away. In the morning when I get up it still feels like there's a brick on my chest. I wonder if the adjustments will "fix" that too. I'll let you know....

You know you're wired when...

You need to be re-booted each morning.

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