Atrial lead

Hi found out my atrial lead which has been in place for 17 years is breaking. as I already have 3 leads in my vein the doctor suggests turning off the atrial lead & just leaving the 1 main ventral lead working, they did this & told me walk around the unit for a while & if I feel OK they will keep a check on me for the next couple of months, he also says this will extend the battery life.
anyone else had this problem

1 Comments

Need for atrial lead?

by golden_snitch - 2014-05-01 05:05:08

Maybe you don't need the atrial lead. I mean, if you can walk around feeling perfectly fine with the atrial lead switched off, then why replace it? What was your original diagnosis, why did you get the pacemaker?

I would definitely not extract a 17 years old atrial lead to replace it with a new one, if you don't need atrial pacing. The heart muscle tissue in the atrium is much thinner than in the ventricles - it's actually not that much muscle tissue, the atria don't do much pumping -, so extracting atrial leads carries a higher risk than in the ventricles.

Inga

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Your ICD has a better memory than you.

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