SADS Foundation :: Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes Foundation

Hi everyone. My name is Brian. I'm 26 and I live on Long Island, NY. I had a pretty bad experience recently, and I certainly don't mean to scare anybody, but I think it's worth sharing.

I was diagnosed with LQTS in 2006 by a genetic test. I've never had any symptoms, but because of my family history (father and aunt died suddenly at 39 and 13, respectively) the doctor decided to give me an ICD, which was implanted in March '06. I never had any problems with it and barely noticed it was there. I found out about the Medtronic recall last fall for the Sprint Fidelis lead, which I had. My doctors advised me to leave it in and have it checked out once a month instead of every three. Still no problems.

On March 24, my ICD alarm went off, and I found out that day that the lead was fractured. My doctor wanted to admit me to the hospital on the spot, but instead I left and came back a few hours later. They scheduled a surgery to replace the whole device the next day.

I slept in the emergency room that first night, and I woke up early the next morning with the device shocking me. The fractured lead caused the ICD to fire inappropriately, so I woke up to five shocks in a row. I got one more a few minutes later, before they were able to turn it off. It was very frightening, mostly because I didn't know if it was going to stop.

That was bad enough, but then when they were extracting the damaged lead that afternoon, the laser the surgeon was using to cut through the scar tissue accidentally lacerated my heart. My blood pressure dropped sharply and they had to crack my chest open to repair the damage. I had seven blood transfusions, and spent the next five days in the hospital (two in the ICU). The surgery was supposed to last about 90 minutes, but turned into almost five hours.

I finally went back to work on May 8 after almost seven weeks at home. I am recovering very well, but still dealing with some psychological issues from what happened. I've had recurring nightmares about the shocks (even just reading a post on here about what a shock feels like made me nauseous), and I've been seeing a social worker to help ease the stress. Things are getting better for the most part. I am also pursuing a lawsuit against the Medtronic corporation (not against the doctors or the hospital, because they made very clear to me that blood loss was a risk of the surgery, which is why they didn't want to do it in the first place).

I guess the moral of my story is that if you have the faulty Medtronic leads, please make sure you visit your doctor regularly and have them monitored very closely. If your alarm goes off, do not hesitate to go to the doctor, and make sure the device is disabled before it can malfunction. My brother and sister both have the same lead I did, and I worry every day that they might have to go through the same thing.

Thanks,
Brian

Brian,

Thanks for sharing your story.

As far as I know it wasn't all sprint fidelis leads, but just a certain model number. Is this true? I wonder because I have sprint fidelis leads and I think I remember checking back in october and the model numbers not matching.

Yes it was only certain serial numbers, but definitely double-check that you do not have one of them.

thanks,

I just double checked and luckily I did not have any of the defective models.

What a story, you must have be really scared, thanks for sharing your story, My Mom and Sister have that type of ICD, We all have Long Qt . Both of my kids died of Long QT, of course we didn't have a clue what was wrong with them, until it was to late.
Jackie www.jimmyandcrissy.embarqspace.com

hey,
i had the same issue with one of my leads, but it was before the recall. it was a sprint fidelis and i just found out i actually got another 1 of the recalled leads implanted instead.
you talk about nightmares, i was wondering if u ever had "phantom shocks" i still get them and my lead fracture was 2 years ago my doctors say it's normal but i dont think i can be.
(when i say phantom shocks i mean your body reacts identical to if it was getting a shock, i can hardly tell the difference)