2 months today PaceMaker anniversary

Okay so we are at 2 months..have been doing pretty good
however this afternoon I was wrapping presents came up from downstairs..I felt a little funny a little winded...well I checked my pulse and it was slow 44.. then it went up to 76 which is where it usually is.. has anyone had this happened before to them?
I didn't feel to good.. I thought the PaceMaker kicked in faster then that? my settings are 140/50... My cardio man said it would not drop below 50...so just wondering if any of you have had this happen before..? Thank you and Happy Holidays to you all

2 Comments

funny stuff

by breezy - 2009-12-20 06:12:48

Thank you Smitty for your response with good points:)
I am going to call my Dr tomorrow..becuz I am wondering about the short of breath,dizzyness and achy legs...which I did not have before...have you had any of this?( or anyone else) had this before the PM...and with the incident
yesterday I now have some of this and wonder if my PM needs to be tweaked again? How many times does ones PM have to be adjusted? and once adjusted..do we have to keep adjusting it? I got off the cardiomoniter a couple of weeks ago and showed no problems..so I don't know..and I am getting frustrated..:( I try to keep a positive outlook......
Thanks again
Breezy

Low Heart Rate

by SMITTY - 2009-12-20 12:12:15


Hello Breezy,

Confusing ain't it. Your doctor says because you have a pacemaker with a low set point of 50 your heart rate will not drop below that, yet you have found it below that number. Believe or not, both of you can be correct. Now I'll add a little more confusion and try to explain how that can happen.

First let me say, all of this is based on my experience of having a PM with a low setting of 70, but finding my heart rate as low as 42, and all the time being told by the experts that I just can't count heart beats. They ignored the fact I have had a nurse for a child bride for 60 years who has more than forty years experience counting pulses. In addition I have four electronic devices (yes, I wear suspenders and a belt) that all agreed with my mid-forties count.

Now let's go back to the beginning. I got my first PM in 2000 and started this irregular heart rate in February 2007. From February 2007 until July 2009 to I went through these low heart rate episodes from one to a half-dozen, or more, times daily. Fortunately for me the low readings were most often in the 50 to 60 range, which I could handle, but when they dropped into the 40s, I had chest pain and SOB. I made countless trips to the Dr. and PM clinic and heard even more times my pacemaker "was working just fine."

To try to make this story short, for those that may read it and not know our PM checks to see if our heart's natural PM has sent an electrical impulse to give us a heart beat before its will send one. Therein is where the problem starts. We can have PVCs, PACs or skip beats, all of which can be a weak heart beat that is hard to detect manually or with an electronic device, but our PM will detect this attempt by the heart's natural PM to give a heart beat. The result is our manmade PM sends no impulse, yet the heart beat is no strong enough to pump the blood we need. This results in the symptoms many of us with this problem will see.

I'll not try to offer a solution for everyone, but I can tell you what I did that has worked for me. Since my real discomfort was when my heart rate was in the 40s range it seemed reasonable to me that if I got my low PM setting increased to 80, adding 10 beats would stop my heart rate from going below 50, which I could live with. It took a little doing, but I got that change along with some minor changes in the rate response settings made on 7-29-09 and I had almost instant improvement in the way I felt. In addition my exercise tolerance improved considerably.

I have talked to the cardiologists and he was surprised that I had gotten so much improvement with this small change in the PM settings. He even had an echogram performed and it confirmed that I was having very, very few premature bats and no skip beats. Premature beats and skips beats last February were so numerous that the results of an echo were useless. The cardio's explanation was that the increased heart rate was in effect heading off the preemies at the pass and they did not have time to occur.

Again let me say this has worked for me and I know of a couple of other people that say they have gotten good results. Whether it will work for others or not I don't know, but if you have this problem and have a cardiologist that is willing to give it a try, it may be worth the effort to give it a whirl. Like I said, I knew before I left the PM Clinic I had more improvement than I had hopped for.

Good luck, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you,

Smitty

You know you're wired when...

You can hear your heartbeat in your cell phone.

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