bad ventrical lead

found out I have a compromised bottom lead about 8 months ago and that was re-programed to basically take that lead out of picture. Leads have been in for 19 years! Anyone on here ever had leads that old removed and replaced or is going in on the opposite side standard procedure. Last check-up on 7/11/12 said Pm had about one (1) year left.
I've had two replacements and its program, insert and forget it until this lead issue. I've been taken from polar to unipolar (or vise versa ) a couple of times with limited success.
Open to comments, etc.

1 Comments

lead replacement

by Tracey_E - 2013-07-25 11:07:11

My ventricular lead went bad at about the same age as yours. We programmed around it and waited until the battery was ready for replacement. I'm dependent on my ventricular lead so turning it off wasn't an option, they cranked it up so the signal would get through. Once they crank it up, the battery goes down fast.

Standard procedure depends on who you ask. I had a venogram to see how much space was in the vein. I had room so we just added a new lead on top of the old ones and capped off the bad one. Second choice was going to be run it through the right side, last choice would have been extract and start new. I'm young enough I expect to live through more than one new set of leads so I wanted to put off extraction as long as possible in the hope that in my lifetime I won't need it more than once.

If you do a search for extraction, there have been many members here go through it.

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