Heart hurts?

I had a pacemaker implanted mid-December and quite often my heart hurts. It is not when it is being paced because that is not happening very often from my statistics. The feeling is a dull constant pain that is uncomfortable, and sometimes worrisome, but mostly annoying. Any ideas? (I do have a-fib and other irregular rhythms less than 4% of the time, but the dull pain is more constant and I feel it maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of the time.) Thanks! This is a great group!

3 Comments

What does your Cardio doc say?

by janetinak - 2011-03-10 02:03:29

It may just be some some bruising but if you have not talked to your doc about this, I sure would. Let us know what you find out.

thinking of you,

Janet

Cesht Pain

by SMITTY - 2011-03-10 04:03:01

Hello,

As Janet said the place to start for an answer is your Dr. I know for a fact there can be any one of a hundred or more things that can cause pain in the heart area. Fortunately most of them are not significant, but you don't want to write off one that does have great significance.

Just to give you a couple of examples. A couple of years after I had bypass surgery I had some pain to show up in the middle of my chest. Of course that got my attention in a hurry and it was off to the Dr as soon as I could. Turned out it was slight hypertension an a low dose of a calcium channel blocker stopped it immediately. That was in 1985 and over the years I've had some of these mysterious pains to come and go but a couple of times they really meant something. For the last several weeks I've been having pain in the 3 to 5 range (on a pain scale of 0 to 10) only this time I know it is again my pacemaker that is confused and causing the pain.

Earlier this week I was at the Dr. office and she was checking my heart rate and got a puzzled look on her face and said "I don't think your pacemaker is working." The low setting on my PM is 80 and she was finding a pulse ranging from about 70 to 85. She had already done an EKG and told me I was having short runs of A-fib, which I knew about. I tried to tell her I had seen what she was talking about and it no longer surprised me. I went on to tell her it was my conclusion that the a-fib was confusing the PM. It didn't know when to help my heart beat and when to be quiet and when it tried to help sometimes it was out of sync with my natural heart beat and I would get the varying heart beats and the pain in the middle of my chest I had told her about.

Her response was to just shake her head. I didn't know and I didn't ask if she was thinking what an idiot I have here for a patient, or I don't know enough about pacemakers. In her defense she is a primary care physician (and a very good one) and not a cardiologist. So she did the next best thing I guess. She set me up with an appointment with a cardiologist.

The only reason I tell you all this is I like to talk and not because I think your pain is caused by anything like what I have and therein is the catch. We need a Dr to decide what is causing our pain. My standing recommendation for anyone that has pain above the belt and below the ears is if they don't know what is causing that pain they should see a Dr.

Good luck,

Smitty

A Cot in the ER

by donr - 2011-03-10 10:03:52

That's what I'd have, were I to go to the ER every time I had chest pains. And I nearly did some 35 yrs ago when this all started.

Once upon a time in March of 1977, I started suffering chest pains, SOB & palpitations. ECG's while having the pains - even after several weeks of them - showed absolutely nothing. But the pains continued. I had a high pressure, very stressful job at the time, so eventually the conclusion was "Stress-induced pains." Left the job for another, less stressful assignment. They continued.

Long story goes on for about 7 yrs this way. Finally a shrink I was seeing handed me a small paperback & said read this - see if you fit. I did. Man, did I ever! Finally, they had characterized PTSD & I had it. (Brought it home from Viet Nam.) Still do, & it jumps up & bites me every so often, but at least I know what it is. Symptoms still the same - SOB; chest pains.

I heartily second Smitty's advice - when in doubt, see the Dr.! You have no idea what is going on. I can tell you that from experience. It took me a long time to get some sense of what caused mine. IT has only been recently -- last year - that I've had any pains that are different enough to send me to the ER - & they actually turned out to be of significance. So - until you & your cardio work out how to characterize your hurting chest so you can tell when you can procrastinate about seeking help - get it fast.

Don

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