Feeling Faint

I began walking recently - 2 miles per day at a rather brisk pace. I have experienced a few episodes of feeling faint just for a moment. It goes away and then returns a couple of times per day. I recently felt the urge to cough because of the feeling in my throat while walking. I feel really good most all the time and have a lot of confidence in the pm. I take no medications for the heart.

2 Comments

Faint

by agelbert - 2011-01-16 11:01:11

This is my experience after 4 years with a PM.
I was overweight at 219 when implanted. My implantation was done because my heart stopped for 16 seconds while on a heart monitor.
After implantation I began to exercise on the treadmill slowly. After one year I had built up my workout to 1.5 hours per day, five days a week, with 160 max heart rate set on the polar monitor alarm I wore while exercising. Besides aspirin, I take no medication. After a year and half, I got my weight down to 185.
At that point, I was exercising with small hand weights while jogging and walking on the treadmill.
Then I began to feel faint about one hour after exercising. It got worse. I would feel feint from getting up from a sitting position (orthostatic hypotension). I had to grab the walls sometimes because everything was going black. I never did actually fall or pass out, though.
The PM has never shown a malfunction on all my interrogation reports so I assumed I was overdoing the exercise.
I dialed back the exercise to three days a week and only 45 minutes a session. I dialed back my polar monitor max rate alarm to 155.
The feinting senstions stopped completely within one week. My weight has crept back up to 195 but so far so good.
Note: I do not have a rate response PM. It's there to keep my pulse above 60, period.
I hope that helps.

Upper limit setting

by ElectricFrank - 2011-01-17 12:01:24

It's possible that your upper limit is set too low. The problem is that the pacemaker enforces the upper limit by causing your heart to skip beats. This is the last thing you need when you are pushing it.

The best way to check this out is to check your pulse at the point where you feel light headed. The best way is to manually check it. You will feel the beats becoming irregular and possibly even drop to half.

Is so you either need to have the limit raised or do like agelbert suggested and dial it back a bit.

I had this problem right after the implant. The upper limit was set to 120bpm and even a reasonable walk into the wind would cause all sorts of uncomfortable feelings. I pushed the issue and had mine set up to 150. I walked home from the clinic at a very brisk walk and felt great.

frank

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