poor healing

Hi Guys,
I am 36 old and have had a pacemaker since I was 2. I had at least 12 surgeries and pacemaker changes for all different reasons (wire issues, battery finishing before the time, mysterious stop), during my first years I had the PM in my stomach and when I was around 16 the doctor decided to implant it at my right shoulder.

I had my last pm replacement in February, which was the fourth one at the same place. After 3 weeks of the surgery the scar was looking great, but after that it started to become white (a bit like a giant pimple) and in few days it was open and leaking white liquid. I went to the doctor a few times, they did bacteriological tests and all results were negative. I had redness, no fever and the pain was quite weak for the size of the hole (in few hours that became from a little hole for almost all scar open and at least few centimetres deep). It took me two months to heal completely, taking antibiotics all the time. The surgeon doctor was quite scared and talking about to take the pacemaker out of my body. After all that process, he said I have a poor healing and probably will have problems with the coming surgeries as well, special thinking that I will need do the replacements for ever and I am 36 years old.
Would like to ask if someone had any similar issue? What to do about?

Thanks

3 Comments

Scar revision

by Gellia3 - 2011-06-08 07:06:20

Hi,
It almost sounds as though it was the scar tissue that wouldn't heal. Scar is made from fibrous tissue and heals poorly as it really doesn't have a blood supply.

The only thing I can think of is next time have a total scar revision and have a plastic surgeon do it. They can remove the entire scar and start a new one. That may keep it from opening and hopefully your skin will heal better than the scar tissue.

I'm sure there will be others that will chime in with more information. I've had 7 replacements so far (first PM was in 1975) and infection is always on both my surgeon's and my mind. Like many of us, I get IV antibiotics during my surgeries.

Hope this helps! Welcome to the club.

Best to you,
Gellia

Scar Tissue

by donb - 2011-06-08 09:06:47

Hi Marcia, I also had an issue with scar tissue in my normal left chest implant after 3 replacement PMs'. After having my 4th PM implant in my right chest I needed my old site restored to avoid infection from my old leads as they started to erode through. As my Cardiologist had put me on massive doses of antibiotics I was fortunate to avoid infection.
My Cardiologist had referred me to a plastic surgeon who had little experience in PM site restoration which resulted in 2 surgeries. As had been mentioned numerous times on this site, I should have looked for a surgeon who specialized in this type of surgery with at least 100 surgeries in the prior year. As it turned out this Dr. consulted with my Cardiologist as to the procedure for me to do the job & it failed. So, advice to anyone with PM site work, make sure you choose an experienced Surgeon to do the job. If you have questions on details you may private message me!! donb

thanks

by MarciaRiederer - 2011-06-09 11:06:45

Thanks for the comments. I will search for an plastic surgeon with good experience, for sure!
I am enjoying a lot this site and the way how everyone supports each other!
Cheers


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