Short of Breath

After suffering from very shortness of breath climbing the 3 stories to my condo I recently changed Cardio Doctors. New clinic nurse told me to slap my chest 4 or 5 times as I was approaching the stairs. She said it would alert defib/pace I was upper body exercising?

Anyway ir seems to work. I get to the condo without feeling like I just crossed the finish line of a marathon.

Anybody else ever heard of this?

5 Comments

Makein Like Tarzan

by SMITTY - 2009-07-10 01:07:56

Hello Boraborabob,

Never heard of that being prescribed but I think I understand what they are having you do. If you have the rate response feature activated on your pacemaker the chest thumping makes it think you are exercising and kicks your heart rate into a higher gear. To prove or disprove this you might check your heart rate before you make like Tarzan and wait a minute or so and check it again to see if it is faster. Otherwise I have no idea why they have you doing this.

Pllease let us know if this is what is why they have you thumping your chest. It is something I had never heard of and it could be info when I have my rate response restarted.

Smitty

I have heard of this

by janetinak - 2009-07-11 02:07:17

told by a professionla that wiggling the PM site does exactly as Smitty above suggests. But have also heard that it isn't something that shouldn't be done all the time. Why don't you ask your doc to change your settings to accomodate your activities. I had SOB as I was more active as & when PM checked out OK they just gave me more juice (not sure exact title for it is) but it worked.

Good luck, Janet

It's feasible . . .

by SaraTB - 2009-07-11 03:07:06

My new EP explained to me that PMs have trouble identifying the extra effort needed to mount stairs: the accelerometer can't tell the difference between walking on the flat, and walking upstairs. I asked him whether swinging my arms about before ascending a flight of stairs might help "inform" my PM that I was about to do something more energetic, and he said it might be worth trying.

As it turns out, my new PM has minute ventilation, and the additional monitoring of my breathing rate seems to have improved my ability to mount stairs without breathlessness, so I've never tested the arm-swinging theory, but I wish I'd known about the idea when I had the old PM.

wow!!

by Hot Heart - 2009-07-11 05:07:57

never hear of it, but thinking about it it does make sense. Its a bit like when youre driving and going over loads of speed bumps, the heart speeds up because it thinks you are exercising.

HH

oh, my word......

by Angelie - 2009-07-13 07:07:20

what are the "Janes" to do?

You know you're wired when...

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