Pacemaker at 35 yrs old?!
Question: there is a good chance i am going to need a pacemaker. I will know at my next appointent and i am only 35 yrs old. What is the cons to having a pacemaker? and information about the surgery?
Answers: there is a good chance i am going to need a pacemaker. I will know at my next appointent and i am only 35 yrs old. What is the cons to having a pacemaker? and information about the surgery?
A pacemaker is a small box of electronics that monitors the heart rate and if the heart beats too slowly, makes it beat faster by giving it small electrical impules. It is connected to the heart by a couple of wires that travel inside one of the shoulder veins into the heart.
Pacemakers are generally inserted under a local anaesthetic. Essentially, the surgeon injects some local anaesthetic into the shoulder region just below the collar bone. This is often the most painful part of the whole procedure and after this, you should feel no moer than some pushing about in the shoulder area. The surgeon will then make an incision about 2 inches ong underneath the collar bone and make a small pocket under the skin and fat in the area. The pocket is about 2.5inches in diameter and the pacemaker will eventuall sit in this.
Then the sureon will insert a couple of wires into the vein that runs under the collar bone and these are the wies that will eventually connect the heart with the pacemaker. The surgeon pushes the wires round into the heart under the guidence of an Xray camera and fixes the wires into place within the right side of the heart. That is the difficult bit done. The wires are then tested to make sure the electrical connection t the heart is good and then they are connected to the pacemaker itself (often nicknamed "the Can"). The pacemaker is then sewed into its pocket and thats it.
Complications: The two main problems early on are puncturing to the lung that lies just underneath the vein in the shoulder, causing a pneumothorax (sounds bad but easily fixed) and occurs in 1%. The second complication is infection on the pacemaker which is rare ~1:1000 but can be serious and will require the removal of pacemaker and wires (which can be difficult if the wires have been in more than 3 months). Late problems are often due to problems withthe wires breaking. Again rare but they have to be replaced.
With someone of your age, the othe main problem is battery life. Pacemakers run on batteries which last 10-20years. Battery life depends on how complicated the pacemaker is - the more complicated the electronics, the shorter the battery life, how often you need it to stimulate the heart (depends on what the initail problem is) and how good the electrical connection with the heart is.
When the battery runs low, "the can" will need changing though not necessarily the wires. This will mean another operation under local to open up the pocket, unscrew the can from the wires and connect up a new one.
Hopefully they will develop pacemakers with ever longer battery life.
Hope this helps.
My mum had a pacemaker fitted they give you a local anasthetic and it takes about half a hour with just a couple of stitches. Good luck !
Have a look here....
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/...
Good luck.
There is some good info on WebMD ..... but I really don't know much about them ....... I wanted to stop by and wish you good luck ...... = )
Well, your doctor is the best person to tell you about the surgery, but it's really pretty minor. There's an incision above your pectoral muscle that they put the actual device in through, and they thread the wires into your heart via you blood vessels, so there's not much else in the way of cutting.
As for limitations, you are going to have to avoid strong magnetic fields (like having an MRI) and they'll give you a card to show at the airports so you don't have to walk through a metal detector, which should also be avoided. Otherwise, I can't say a lot more without knowing why you need a pacemaker, but generally they don't have too many side effects in and of themselves.