What problems can a pacemaker cause?
Infection near the site in the heart where the device is implanted. Swelling, bruising or bleeding at the pacemaker site, especially if you take blood thinners. Blood clots (thromboembolism) near the pacemaker site. Damage to blood vessels or nerves near the pacemaker.
- 1) Failure to pace the appropriate cardiac chamber: Output failure. Capture failure.
- 2) Problem with detecting intracardiac signals: Undersensing. Oversensing.
- 3) Pseudomalfunction: Crosstalk with resultant safety pacing.
You should feel back to your usual self, or even better, very quickly. It's best to avoid reaching up on the side you had your operation for 4 to 6 weeks. That means not hanging out washing or lifting anything from a high shelf, for example.
It usually involves failure of the pulse generator or the lead(s). It presents as failure to pace, failure to capture, inappropriate sensing (over- or under-sensing), or dysrhythmia. Inappropriate sensing and failure to capture are the two most common malfunctions.
A pacemaker does not actually beat for the heart, but delivers en- ergy to stimulate the heart muscle to beat. Once someone stops breathing, his body can no longer get oxygen and the heart muscle will die and stop beating, even with a pacemaker.
Baseline patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1: The median patient survival after pacemaker implantation was 101.9 months (approx. 8.5 years), at 5, 10, 15 and 20 years after implantation 65.6%, 44.8%, 30.8% and 21.4%, respectively, of patients were still alive.
Permanent decrease of systolic blood pressure was observed only in small number (5.8%) of pacemaker patients.
Short-term, your doctor might recommend avoiding heavy lifting or more strenuous activity, especially those activities that require your upper body strength and could irritate or aggravate the incision site. However, your recovery should be complete in approximately four weeks' time.
- Dizziness, lightheadedness.
- Fainting or loss of consciousness.
- Palpitations.
- Hard time breathing.
- Slow or fast heart rate, or a combination of both.
- Constant twitching of muscles in the chest or abdomen.
- Frequent hiccups.
Permanent pacemaker implantation can have several complications, including lead-related complications; traumatic complications, such as pneumothorax and pericardial effusion; pocket complications; and infection.
What is the most common complication after permanent pacemaker placement?
The most common complication is lead dislodgement (higher rate atrial dislodgment than ventricular dislodgment), followed by pneumothorax, infection, bleeding/pocket hematoma, and heart perforation, not necessarily in that order, depending on the study (15-29) (Tables 2,33).
- Dizziness or lightheadedness.
- Fainting or loss of consciousness.
- Feeling like your heart is fluttering (palpitations)
- Hard time breathing.
- Slow or fast heart rate, or a combination of both.
- Constant twitching of muscles in the chest or abdomen.
- Frequent hiccups.
Pacemaker syndrome is an array of cardiovascular and neurologic signs and symptoms resulting from disruption of appropriate AV synchrony (AV dyssynchrony) caused by suboptimal pacing, inappropriate programming of pacing parameters, or upper-limit behavior of AV synchronous pacing systems.