adult congenital ep

• by Tracey_E
• 2016-12-09 18:25:19
• General Posting
• 990 views
• 5 comments

I met with an adult congenital ep today for the first time. WOW!!!! I wasn't sure going in if I just wanted to talk to him and see what insights he had or transfer my care but that's a no-brainer, I am absolutely changing to the congenital practice. A few takeaways I thought some of you  who are like me and have been paced long term would be interested in ...

- he does annual xrays to look for early fractures in leads

- he does Holter on everyone and uses it to fine tune settings. He said the interrogation report will only tell him about 80%, the Holter will help him with the other 20%

- I learned a lot of things I didn't know about extraction, a little scary but very interesting. When the day comes, I will be high risk. I already figured that based on the age/type of  leads but that's not what he said causes the risk. People who have had previous heart surgeries are easier to extract than those who don't have any scar tissue to toughen up the heart.  

- He said he very rarely sees patients develop synchrony problems between the ventricles or drop in function after 5 years of pacing. So, basically if you've been ventricularly paced 5+ years and echos still look good, odds are very high they will continue to look good.

He said he only considers drop in function to be a minor long term risk for me. The only serious concern in my future is the day a lead gives out and it's time for extraction, which is hopefully many years off. He said he expects me to be able to keep up Crossfit and skiing as long as I want, and there's no reason to think this will have any impact on my life expectancy. 

And last, he is very excited about the future of leadless technology, says that is going to be the next big breakthrough, when they get leadless able to handle dual chamber pacing. Which they are working on. Sweet.