2 months ago I had a heart pacer put in but the swelling & bruising around my collarbone won't go down. Is this normal ?.

[merlinadams]

DDD-R heart pacer.

[bantam12]

I would get it checked out as 8 weeks is a long time to still have both swelling and bruising. Call your pacing team or arrhythmia nurse for advice.

[merlinadams in reply to bantam12]

Yeah I suppose I had better ring them. I haven't at the moment because of how busy the NHS is at the moment. Anyway thanks for that bantam 12.

[bantam12 in reply to merlinadams]

I had horrendous bruising but by about 6 weeks it had more or less faded, muscle pain from the trauma was bad as well but no swelling other than the bump where the device is.

Don't worry about the clinic being busy, there should be help available for those with problems.

A friend of mine works in our local Cardiology dept and she said it's really quiet as all routine appts and procedures have been cancelled.

Good luck.

[Heythrop51]

You need to get it checked. It may be an infection.

[Gabbi1966]

I would get it checked, I had no swelling just the bump where the pacemaker is.

[FeetheBookworm]

I had an infection in mine and it seeped for about 4 months. Kept having to have the dressing changed weekly at the hospital. Did eventually clear up and no problems since.

I had to go to A&E about a month ago due to a dog bite on my face (accident with one of my dogs) and the place was like a morgue. Never seen it so quiet and the doctor & nurses were saying how worried they were that people were staying away.

They were at pains to check I was not there from CV19 from the minute I stepped foot in the door. They had a totally separate area for a those patients.

When I had the stitches taken out at me local hospital which has a walk in section the sister who took them out couldn’t stop praising the plastics doctor (a junior doctor) who had done them.

[EMBoy]

I would have it looked at ASAP. If you do have an infection, there is a big risk of it getting into your heart. Don't worry about Covid, the NHS is operating as normal and Covid patients are kept well apart from other patients.

[Fred1954]

Mine took ages to go down. I had it checked by the arrhythmia nurse who recommended taking a picture every few days to keep track. She said that as I was on Apixaban it took longer for the haematoma to resolve. She was right. At the time it felt like they'd forgotten to take the pacemaker out of its box!