Cracked leads and shock

Hi, everyone!
Life has not been easy since I take care of my beloved husband of 56 years: he is 84 and in poor health, and I'm 76! The leads in my pacemaker are cracked and my electro physiologist says he doesn't know where the crack is. He says there is lots of "noise" and they will have to be replaced. He is trying to stretch the time as long as possible to be covered by Medicare. My first lead placement 14 years ago led to my heart being pierced, code blue, ICU for one week, hospital stay for 3 more! I also have lupus SLE. My questions:
1. Is this "stretching" advisable?
2. When the leads break totally how does this shock feel like?
3. Does some kind of alarm goes off at home?
4. Do they put new leads on? What do they do if there is no room to thread it?
Thank you so much.... Even if you can't help me!

4 Comments

New Leads

by Good Dog - 2015-12-28 07:12:20

There is no problem with stretching the time before replacement. If the lead is breaking-down, the battery life will be shortened. It is likely that the doc will insert a new lead and new generator at the same time. I think it is customary to do that. There are many alternatives to replacing a lead. They may want to extract one or they may want to insert new leads from the other side. It is hard to say what their approach will be, but in any case, you should be fine.
It is unlikely that the lead will break completely and I'm sure they are keeping a close eye on it with more frequent PM checks.
Keep the faith! And keep us posted......

Sincerely,

David

Delaying Replacement

by Artist - 2015-12-28 07:12:50

My feelings are that the younger we are when we endure surgery, the quicker we heal and have more strength to endure the surgery if there are complications. I doubt that there is an actual shock when a lead breaks and believe that the primary result would be a serious deterioration in the functioning of your PM and its ability to pace your heart. Part of the decision regarding lead replacement involves how dependent you are on your PM to regulate your heart beat. I was told my PM is pacing my heart 100% of the time. Some people pace at a much lower rate and are less dependent on their PM. In those situations, if their PM stopped pacing, their heart may still sustain a heart rate that is o.k If you have a home monitor like the Merlin, by St. Jude, daily readings should help to identify any urgent problems. Depending on how much room there is in the vein where your leads are now located, they will decide whether or not to use the existing vein or move the new lead to another vein. There have been great improvements in technology since your leads were implanted 14 years ago. If the leads are 14 years old, I would probably ask the doctor to go ahead with the replacement. But, the primary diagnostic tool should be a current interrogation of your PM to get a detailed report. Another consideration is how you feel right now. Are you beginning to feel lack of energy etc.

leads

by Tracey_E - 2015-12-29 01:12:00

When it happened to me, they made the analogy of running the air conditioner with the window open. The house still cools (pm works) but your power bill skyrockets (shorter battery life). As long as it's functioning, it's perfectly safe, they simply turn up the juice to get the signal through. I had this happen to my ventricular lead, the one I am dependent on. It was stable so we waited more than 5 years before doing anything about it. I had room in the vein so when the battery died and was replaced, they added a new lead on top of what's there, capped off the old one and left it in there. If there is room, they put a new one in the vein. If there is no room, they can either extract what is there and start fresh, or go in from the other side. I opted for the least invasive choice.

Shocking would be extremely rare.
No alarm, they monitor it when they do the interrogation reports.

Strange numbers

by Ariela - 2016-01-12 09:01:42

Thank you so much for your comments! I do appreciate your help so much! I am not able to write often due to lupus lack of energy and overwhelming work keeping up with my responsibilities.
I received the results from my electrophysiologist and I can't understand anything! Here they go:

Since 9/14/15 I have had
1 AMS event
431 VHR events
133 PMT events
11,057 noise reversion events.
Does anyone know what all this means?

Thank you so much again!

You know you're wired when...

You are always wired and full of energy.

Member Quotes

As for my pacemaker (almost 7 years old) I like to think of it in the terms of the old Timex commercial - takes a licking and keeps on ticking.