Day Ten-Worried about dislodging a lead

Day ten after implant of PM. Still feeling pretty good. Some slight pain in incision area and still black and blue under my left arm and shoulder. Although in no significant pain I find it hard to sleep perhaps because I don't want to lie on my left side.
I do have a real concern about the possibility of dislodging a lead. I catch myself from time to time using my left hand to open doors turn knobs and reach for things. I have not lifted anything heavy with it. On occasion I have also raised my left arm a bit over my head without thinking.
My resting HR remains rock steady around 60 BPM. I'm thinking that's a good sign that everything is O.K.
I see my cardiologist today for a check up and hopefully he will reassure me (or not) and remove the steri-strips over the incision.
So far so good and I continue to look forward to full recovery and getting active again.

2 Comments

Leads came out

by Ketrash - 2011-08-01 05:08:00

Hi, I had my pacemaker implanted on 7/14/11 and at my checkup 7/19 I learned that the leads came out and had to have new ones attached the following day. I think I was careless or slept wrong. I have been trying very carefully not to use the left arm for lifting over my shoulder but today I reached/stretched way over my head and closed the hatchback of my car. I don't go for another checkup until the end of the month. Do you think it's okay or should I be worried? It's been 12 days. Thank you.

After Dr. Visit

by brucecal - 2011-08-01 06:08:27

Well as mentioned above I saw my Cardiologist for my 10 day checkup. Checked out my Pacemaker and all O.K. with it. Not too concerned about leads dislodging (he put them in) but also cautioned about raising it too high or lifting weights above 5 lbs or so. (See "Left arm down" comment above.)
He has let me drive and also go to the gym to use stationary bike. But no upper body workouts for at least 6 weeks.
One disappointment (but not too much of a surprise) was that the download from the Medtronics shows I have been in and out of Afib/flutter since implant. He had hoped that this particular Pacemaker had an algorithm that would suppress it. The good news is that before pacemaker implant when I was in Afib/Fluttter my HR went into the 30's now it doesn't go below 60 BPM and I hardly know I'm in Afib/flutter.
I am on Pradaxa (switched from Warfarin a month ago).
have another vist in 2 weeks to address other approaches to the Afib/flutter issue.

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