PM's Atrial Lead

Hi everyone...my son had his PM fitted in 2012 for complete heart block and since then he has been doing really well until late last year November they noticed he had some events recorded releated to "noise" on his atrial leads,sometimes three to four times a day.Took him for his 3mths PM check yesterday and the "noise" is still there having a total of 932 episodes as compared to 454 in Nov 2017.
Electrophysicist told us that his atrial leads has an insulation break since his pace impedance is now at 200 ohms as compared to Nov 2017,346 ohms and implant, 700 ohms. She metioned as long as it's not his ventricular lead there no need to worry as the atrial lead is there for sensing ,currently pacing at 16%.
He has 1.5 yrs left on his generator and the noise has no effect on his ventricular pacing,currently  set at 100%.
We were told that the atrial lead can be turned off,any advice from the group?
Also,would his impedance go from 200 ohms to 0 ohms with continued episodes?
Thank you all and appreciate your feedback.

1 Comments

turn it off

by Tracey_E - 2018-03-18 23:09:26

I had that happen but with my ventricular lead. Since I pace with it every beat, turning it off wasn't an option. It still worked but they had to crank up the juice to get the signal through so the battery life plummeted. So, if he doesn't need it, for sure turn it off to save battery life. If he's using it 16%, he may feel that it's off, in which case they can do what they did with mine, make it work until the battery needs replaced then fix it then. 

 

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