nervous about tomorrow

Hi all. I'm going tomorrow to get my first bi-ventricular pacemaker. I've had open heart surgery before, so I guess this should be a piece of cake (tell that to my nerves!). I really love this website and have gotten a lot of good information from your posts (thanks for asking the sex question - I was dreading asking my dr about that in front of my parents). :-)

I'm having the device put in under the muscle. For those of you who have done that - how noticeable is it going to be? Was the recovery a lot more painful with that placement?

Thanks.

1 Comments

PM Placement

by ela-girl - 2008-01-15 02:01:11

Hi, clemsongirl!

Well, I think I speak for many when I say that we'll be thinking and praying for you tomorrow. Please post an update after your surgery when you're feeling up to it. We will all want to know how you are faring. And if you have questions...ASK! There is a wealth of experience on this site. And for a girl, we face some things during recovery that a guy just doesn't. :)

My device was put under the muscle and into the breast tissue to keep it more hidden. My EP did this because I am young (well, I hope 30 is still considered young!) and small framed. I will have to say, I would have thought my EP was a plastic surgeon he did such a great job! I can't see my pm AT ALL. There is just the small scare (about an inch now) where the incision was made, and I can see a smidge of one of my leads on the skin. Because the muscle was cut into, I'm sure it took a bit longer to recover than if the pm was placed above the muscle. I don't know the difference since I never had it the other way! I don't think it took me any longer, per se, to recover. I just took my time recovering and slowly got back to things after the 6 weeks like you're supposed to. My pm was also sewn down in its pocket so it wouldn't migrate or flip etc. I have been very happy with it all!

Like a lot of people on this site, I didn't even need any pain meds after surgery. In fact, icing the site worked great and was all I needed.

I hope I helped you some!
ela-girl

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