Lightheadedness after pacemaker installed

2 Comments

Submitted by Dr T on January 27, 2013 – 8:57am

Question: 
Three days ago I had a pace maker installed and have since been very tired and have had daily episodes of lightheadedness.  B/P monitoring shows a normal range but why am I having these spells?  I have been back to the ER since the installation, and everything checked out OK.

Hi John,
If your symptoms are new since the pacemaker implant, it needs to be checked and I doubt the ER looked at all options. When the pacemaker leads were positioned inside your heart, one of them may have perforated your heart muscle and cause some blood to leak into your heart sack. If so, I am concerned you may have a pericardial effusion causing a condition called tamponade. You should see your doctor asap and ask for a cardiac echo to check this out.

I have written about this condition before as you will read here.

Hope this helps,
Dr T

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