Replacement

My old pacemaker needed replacement as the battery was almost run down. I was lead to believe it would be simple. My Cardiologist got called away to an emergency when my procedure was due so a replacement surgeon was called in. When my GP checked my wound a week later, he told me the PM was in the wrong place: too  close to my clavicle and it was restricting my arm movement.

My Cardiologist agreed and scheduled a repositioning procedure. However, unlike the other two operations, this time I have residual pain and am taking some pain killing meds which I did not need previously.  
I have yet to revisit the Cardiologist, but I  suspect that for some reason, the positioning of the PM is  now deeper and lower down than the original device.  

I'm going that the pain will go away and that the thing will settle  down.

A bummer all round and I was so looking forward to getting a new updated device!

 

 

1 Comments

Size of new device versus old pocket size?

by crustyg - 2021-10-20 05:28:05

You have all of the facts - or can quickly find them out for yourself: my *guess* is that the new device seemed to be too big to fit into the existing pocket (which can get smaller with scar tissue over the years), so the new PM was originally placed higher.

Making the pocket, or stretching any scar tissue to fit a replacement device, does quite a lot of damage, and it's probably this that's causing the persistent pain.  I was getting pocket twinges for months after implantation - and the pocket creation hurt a *lot* (no amount of local anaesthetic can really mask this - no sedation).  Chum of mine had his first replacement a while back and the surgeon took more time digging the old PM out of the scar tissue than the initial implantation - and it was sore for some time afterwards.

Sorry to hear that it went *wrong* for you - I imagine you've had a frank discussion with your EP-doc.

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