ANSWERS NEEDED ASAP!

I am 43 years old and never had any heart issues and got slammed with 3rd degree heart block and had my pacemaker installed on Oct 22nd, 2013. I also had an infected tooth that went undetected for 2 months prior to my heart blcok--I think that was the cause of the heart block, but still no answers from the doctors--they say it was hereditery/born with it and they do not know.

I have been experiencing light headedness, shoulder pain, neck pain and I have been taking everyone's advise. I am doing exercises/therapy for the shoulder/neck and started acupuncture. I am getting some relief and working hard, but the light headedness won't subside--what is causing that? Is it related to the shoulder/neck pain from the procedure?

I went for 2 pacemaker checks and all is working well with the device, had an ekg and that was fine and so was my blood pressure. Had a C-scan of my head and that looks fine too.

I am seeing a neurologist who just did a nerve test and found nothing major so what is causing my light headed feeling? It stems on the left side of my head where the pacemaker is too and runs across my forhead between the eyebrows. I just feel foggy/dizzy most of the time.

Does anyone have any answers or experiences with this issure? What can I do to get this foggy/dizzy feeling away?

3 Comments

Tooth Link

by csmith - 2014-01-12 02:01:30

Hi, just to reassure you, gum disease, tooth infections and other oral issues have been strongly linked with infective endocarditis (where you can get vegetations growing on the inside of the heart) but no strong causal link between complete heart block and dental hygiene has been shown.
Blood swabs and/or an Echocardiogram can be used to diagnose/rule out infective endocarditis.

Infection and heart issue

by Theknotguy - 2014-01-12 12:01:25

First question is what did they do with the tooth? Extract and put you on antibiotics? What?

My story was impacted wisdom tooth that went undetected for two years. It's kinda hard to go into a doctors office and say, "I feel funny, doc." So I would get weird feelings in the head. Meanwhile the left side of my upper jaw was swelling from the infection. I had to have the teeth on that side ground down because of the swelling but no one caught the swelling and the tooth never hurt. Then I got a cold.

The cold developed into pneumonia within five days - actually it was the onset of the pneumonia and not a cold. I had bacterial pneumonia from the infected, impacted tooth. The infection almost killed me and they had to go through several antibiotics before one worked, otherwise I'd be dead.

Post pneumonia, I had to have the impacted tooth removed. They said it was encapsulated inside a capsule of bone. Had to break through the bone, then the tooth fell out. As soon as the tooth came out, the swelling in the jaw went down. The capsule completely closed up with bone so it's no longer a problem.

Since they had ground down the teeth due to the swelling, I now had a crooked jaw and crooked bite. Went into TMJ ( Temporomandibular joint) pain. With TMJ pain you have four options: 1) Become a drug addict, 2) Become an alcoholic, 3) Become a combination drug addict / alcoholic, 4) Kill yourself. Fortunately I found a fifth solution - orthodontics and a doctor who worked on TMJ. So..............

For you, from my non-medical side, I'm guessing the tooth has caused swelling. Hopefully they've given you enough antibiotics to kill off infection but you're still dealing with the swelling. The swelling can cause all sorts of problems. I'm also thinking the muscles you use to hold your head straight are still inflamed from the tooth infection.

For me, a licensed massage therapist really helped. She worked on the muscles on my upper neck. She was even able to go inside the mouth and work on my neck muscles in my throat. (Used sterile gloves. Didn't know you could do that.) Quite a few of the muscles were inflamed from the infection and sore from the TMJ pain. So once the muscles were identified and treated, a lot of the pain, light headedness, dizzyness went away.

It took a long time - I think it was a five year process with the orthodontist. It wasn't very much fun either. But knowing what was causing the problem made it easier to deal with the pain and the problems.

Oh, and you'll find out the upper teeth cause problems in your upper back muscles. The lower teeth cause problems in your pectoral muscles in the front. Infection, swelling, then the removal of infection and removal of swelling in the head area can cause light headed feelings.

As far as the infection causing the heart problem ... I'd say the infection probably exacerbated the situation. In my case the heart problems were looming in the future. So while the infection probably didn't cause them, they didn't help either.

Hope this helps.

Theknotguy

what causes CHB

by Tracey_E - 2014-01-13 10:01:11

It is not genetic/hereditary so there is no chance we will pass it on to our children. If you were born with it, the only genetic link they've found is mothers with Lupus are more likely to have babies with CHB. For the rest of us, it's just a fluke. When it comes on as an adult, sometimes it can be from infection or medications but it's more associated with bad systemic infections rather than something localized like a tooth. It's unrelated to how we eat and exercise, not taking care of ourselves causes plumbing problems, not electrical. Don't stress over the why's because most of us have no answers.

Re: dizziness with shoulder/neck pain, have you tried a chiropractor?

Are you on any medications?

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