HEART PAUSING

Hi all
I just wanted to fill you all in on the latest,re infection's anyway after many unsucessful surgeries the last one which was a partial mastectomy 3 weeks ago has seemed to work no infection yayyyy,any was while in the hosp i was very ill had chect pains and had a heart cath that came out ok but i was still sick nauseous type sick lost 20 lbs in 4 days after i was released ended up going back to the hosp with a way high coumadin level 9,54 so i was addmitted still nausous and all they started doing tests turned out my gall bladder was bad had that remover last wed,anyway i was on a moniter and a nurse came in and said my heart paused a couple of times so she called in a cardio dr he checked my pacemaker which he said was working fine the nurse was very adamit and said that she could see the strip showing the pm working but the heart was paused for several seconds and she said it did it more than one time is this possible that the pacer is pacing but heart not beating? kinda strange she said she had seen it before where people needed a icd instead of pm..any way i ham home as of yest hoping to get my strength back soon .
Thanks Valerie

3 Comments

Carolyn65

by Carolyn65 - 2009-11-10 08:11:46

VALERIE: Wow ~ what a trip you have been on and not even a fun one! With that nasty ol' gall bladder gone, the infection gone, hopefully, and to have lost 20 lbs. in just 4 days! You must be a new person, wow.

Hope you are feeling so much better by the holidays. Be sure and get plenty of rest in the mean time. 2010 will be the beginning of a Great New Year for you.

Bless you, Carolyn G. in TEXAS ( :

check

by Tracey_E - 2009-11-10 09:11:35

Ask to have your pm checked, make a note of the times she say the pause.

An icd will jumpstart a stopped heart or slow down a very fast heart by shocking it out of the bad rhythm. A pacemaker only adds extra beats. If you are pausing, you need a pm to fill in the missed beats. It is possible for the heart to not respond to the beat, but not likely if you are still alive to talk about it. I'd ask for an interrogation to see what's up.

threshold

by golden_snitch - 2009-11-11 03:11:28

Hi,

maybe the threshold has changed (because of scar tissue for example) and the pacer impulse now isn't strong enough to actually induce a beat. another possibility is that the lead became dislodged. But they should have checked both when you had your pacer interrogation.

After my open heart surgery while being in the ICU my heart stopped very shortly every time I swallowed. The nurse said that one nerve was probably stimulated when I swallowed but only because I was still having a stomach tube in. Never happened again when they took it out.

Hope they find out what's wrong soon.
Best wishes
Inga

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I just want to share about the quality of life after my pacemaker, and hopefully increase awareness that lifestyles do not have to be drastically modified just because we are pacemaker recipients.