Left Chest Pains after implant

Hi... just had a Biv CRT/Defib implanted two days ago. This afternoon I started experiencing rather sharp pains in my left chest area, below and to the left of the incision, much more intense than I had been led to believe - tylenol will not fix these and percocet is not helping much.  

Called the after hours cardio guy who was no help.  He could not think of anything the device would do to cause that.  I mean, c'mon guy - it's related, whether it was caused by the device or not.  

Any ideas before I head to the ER for a chest xray? 

 

 

4 Comments

Manageable..

by MFK - 2018-02-09 22:48:05

Thanks for your thoughts, Robin.   Yet another percocet did the trick. Still hurts but manageable.   I hate to take a lot of that stuff, not because of addiction fears, but grogginess and it leaves a bit of a hangover. Luckily though I have horded it through the years whenever we were prescribed some, because the ten he gave me may not last through tomorrow. 

By observing I am pretty sure what I have is some angry nerves from the procedure, and what positions sitting are better than others.   Hopefully this will not last, and I think I will skip the ER tonight.  

Again, thanks for responding. 

Still ongoing

by MFK - 2018-02-10 10:38:17

Only slept in bed four hours last night, as it is more painful lying down. So I got up about three, messed around on the computer for a bit while pain meds were taking effect, then decided if I had inflamed nerves and/or muscles, perhaps ibuprofen woul also help. 

Took a couple ibuprofen then went to the easy chair with a neck pillow and my CPAP and went back to sleep sitting up for three hours. Much more comfortable.  The  ibuprofen seemed to help, so I took a couple more when I wwoke up.  So far so good. My diaphragm is tender which makes breathing deeply painful, but I am not short of breath.  

Hopefully a day without narcotic pain meds!

Still going on

by MFK - 2018-02-10 17:45:37

About the same time of day it started getting worse again, so i have taken a pain med and we will see how it goes from here.  

Weird. 

pain

by anita - 2018-02-13 13:23:21

I have had my PM for 10 years now. As a matter of fact I am going for my second next week. Since the put it in my I never felt any better. Maybe I did not get panic attacks anymore, but when people say " you are going to feel like new" that did not happen to me. As a matter of fact between the pain in my shoulder blade and my left arm I was  really never happy to have it. Specially because I was not really missing many beats, it was more like my heart was a little slow. Anyway I am happy to get the new one since I will be able to have MRIs if needed. I have a medtronic and they were going to install a St James, but I questioned them since the St james has been recalled by the gov. for being suceptible to hackers! How do you like them apples? Now they are going to replace it with a Medtronic again. The leads will stay, and the doctor said they don't matter if they are compatible or not as long as the PM is.

You know you're wired when...

Born to be Wired is your theme song.

Member Quotes

We are very lucky to have these devices.