A little Scare

Hi,
I experienced a scare this past week. I'm 2 weeks out from receiving a pm. I work in cardiac and my coworkers did an echo on me (show and tell sort of thing) well it appeared my atrial lead had migrated through my valve and into my ventricle. Showed my EP doc and had an xray which showed the loop of my atrial lead is now in my ventricle, the tip has moved posteriorly in my atrium but the pm is working fine and the thresholds are good. Had the option for them to go back in and readjust but it was recommended to leave it be for now. Anyone experience anything like this before. Somehow I feel as though I live by Murphy's law these days. On a positive note, I feel great and have been symptom free.

2 Comments

Hi,

by Gellia2 - 2007-11-11 02:11:45

I have a third wire (it had been capped and abandoned) that fell into my ventricle in a big loop years ago. I found out about it in 2001. It was discussed having it removed, but we decided not to go that route and just watch it. It has never bothered me except for a single episode of cross talk, which still could not be directly related to the wire. The wire has been there since 1975 and dropped sometime after 1995 as far as we know. I don't bother it and it doesn't bother me. My pacemaker also works fine around it.
Hope this helps!
Best of luck to you,
Gellia

Something to think about

by ElectricFrank - 2007-11-11 04:11:15

If the lead is going to be repositioned it will need to be soon. After some length of time tissue builds around the lead in the vein and removing it is a lot more risky. Being only two weeks out it should be a simple procedure to reposition it. Even if it is working OK now it may limit the possibility of using some of the more advanced features of the pacemaker in the future if you heart develops additional abnormality.
I guess the bottom line is that " leave it be for now" is not a very good option. It is either fix it now or leave it permanently.

You know you're wired when...

Your signature looks like an EKG.

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A pacemaker completely solved my problem. In fact, it was implanted just 7 weeks ago and I ran a race today, placed first in my age group.