Suggest Treatment For Severe Arm Pain After Getting A Pacemaker

Posted on Mon, 6 Oct 2014

Question: I am a 43 year old female and got a pacemaker 5 weeks ago. Yesterday I started having pretty severe left arm pain. It feels like it is deep inside the bone, as I can not seem to get to the pain by rubbing my arm. This pain goes from the my left arm up into my neck and shoulder. I called my cardiologist and I was told to "monitor the pain." This has been over 24 hours now and it hurts pretty bad. Is there something I can do to minimize the pain? And is this normal? I have taken Tylenol and Advil.

Answered by Dr. Benard Shehu (31 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Following causes to your pain...

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXX,

I am sorry for the situation you are in.

There are various factors causing arm pain in your case:
- have you had any recent/light trauma at the place where the pacemaker was inserted?
- have you lifted any weight during these days that could have damaged the pacemaker?
- infection/inflammation in the tissue surrounding the pacemaker: have you noted any sudden redness or edema around the place where the pacemaker is inserted?
- have you experienced syncope or any unusual symptom that could indicate non-well-working pacemaker?

I advise to start taking anti-inflammatory drugs to ease the pain. You should discuss with your cardiologist to go to ER if you cannot manage to schedule a sooner appointment with him/her.

Hope it helped!
Dr.Benard

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj