Heart Valve Surgery Tips

After Open Heart Valve Surgery – Pacemaker Implantation Complication!

After Open Heart Valve Surgery, naturally, you want everything to work right.

Heart Valve Replacement or repair survivors and their loved ones have been through an inordinate amount of pain, worry, suffering, and plain old hard work while trying to achieve recovery from their heart surgeries.

And, that’s why I’m particularly bummed out about what has happened to my brand new pacemaker since its implantation just a few months ago.

As I discussed in my last post, the pacer, located just below the skin, has shifted or slipped out of its pocket, so much so that the leads, screws and posts are almost protruding through the skin. The pacemaker itself does still have some padding, but not much.

Now, if I were planning to spend the rest of my life in my recliner so that nothing ever contacted my pacer implantation site, maybe I could be okay with it, but instead, I’m a very active person who plays with and walks her dogs, plays tennis and golf, hikes in the Sandia Mountains, and cleans house.

These leads and connecting screws and posts are so near the surface that they pinch and sting during the friction of exercise or from any movement of my arm, or just from my bra strap laying on that area. With this kind of continuous irritation, it wouldn’t be long before the leads would fray and eventually fracture.

Additionally, their present position would drastically reduce their lifespan, and then, I would be in the same mess that I was in before, having to have the leads extracted and replaced.

The lead extraction process severely damaged my tricuspid valve, and I had to go through open heart surgery to repair the damaged and severely regurgitating valve.

During today’s follow-up visit with Dr. Blake, my cardiologist, I showed her the problem. She said that it did look like the pacer had shifted somewhat, and also that my exercising was probably causing the pectoral muscle to push the pacer and leads closer and closer to the surface. They couldn’t be much closer now unless they popped on through.

The remedy, she said, is that the pacemaker device and leads would have to be surgically moved using a sub-pectoral technique instead of the skin pocket technique that was used during the original implantation.

Dr. Blake said, “you’ve been through too much to have this pacer implantation problem keep you from enjoying the normal life you once enjoyed”. I could not agree with her more.

The surgery to move the pacemaker to its deeper location will be on the 13th of August. It should just be day surgery, and will be done by Dr. Blake.

The recovery will be more painful and take a little longer than the original implantation because the pacer will be buried deep within the pectoral muscle. But, I can tell you for sure that it will be nothing compared to recovering from heart valve surgery.

While I sure don’t look forward to more surgery, I also know that I don’t want to live the rest of my life having to worry about when this whole pacemaker and lead apparatus is going to fracture or just pop on through my skin.

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