Feeling the PM

Hi All,
Just had my PM installed 10 days ago. Still very sore at sight and toward arm. I was wondering if anyone feels their PM go off. When it is workong in the top part I barely feel it just a light tapping toward the upper inside of my left breast. When it is working in the bottom of my heart (no technical knowledge clearly) I get a shock feeling at the lower inside of my left breast. . Very noticeable, and uncomfortable. The PM clinic says all my numbers are good and say they've never had anyone feel it. The Cardiologist says the same thing. Has anyone experienced this???

3 Comments

Pacemaker Hurts

by SMITTY - 2011-05-04 03:05:56

Hello Sandra,

Welcome to the Pacemaker Club.

And and other pacemaker receipent gets visited by the mean old mystery person that makes their pacemaker do things their Dr never heard of. Yes, I'm being as sarcastic as I know how because you are one of many of us that have had our Dr, nurse, technician tell us "your pacemaker is working fine and it is not causing your problem" or some version thereof. Yet, none of us ever had the same problem before we got a pacemaker.

Now a tiny bit in their defense. They are most likely correct when the said the pacemaker is working fine. What that means is it is working as it should with settings they Dr had programmed into it. The ringer is these settings are obviously not what are best for you.

Now I'll not even try to guess what is causing you the pain but whatever it is can be corrected and most likely corrected with some settings changes. To get what is needed you may need to put that Dr office on speed dial and let them know every time it hurts you. I'm sure you have heard "the squeaky wheel gets the grease", well you may have to become the squeakiest wheel the Dr ever heard in his life.

As for your statement (no technical knowledge clearly) I'll bet you have as much as 99% of us making comments here. So don't ever let that bother you when asking questions. As for the top part and bottom of the heart, you are very close. Actually they are atrium or atrial (top part) and ventricle (bottom part) but I like to keep it simple and just say upper chamber and lower chamber. I found that even my Dr knows what I'm talking about when I say that.

Finally, just don't let that Dr off without correcting your problem, or find yourself another Dr. Sometimes these things will go away but most of the time they don't.

Good luck,

Smitty

Feeling shocks from the Pacemaker

by Nigel - 2011-05-07 08:05:14

Hi Sandra,
I had my Pacemaker installed 8 1/2 years ago (its being changed next week). It has always worked great, but I found it hard to sleep until my first visit with the Pacer tech.

Whenever I lay in bed, particularly on my side, I could feel electrical shocks, continually. There were two reasons for this, which the technician corrected. Firstly, the voltage being applied was too high - each person has a different level of impulse that is necessary to stimulate the heart, but I guess they just use a default voltage. Once the volt level was reduced I no longer felt any shocks - and haven't to this day.

The second reason was that the pacer was triggering continuously because it was set to kick in if my rate fell below 60 bpm (again, I presume this was a default value). My natural minimum is closer to 50, so the pacer was trying to maintain 60 by firing on every beat.

Don't know whether this will help, but best of luck!

Not Alone with the Tapping

by Yakkwak - 2011-05-23 07:05:56

I, too, had the tapping feeling - the funny thing was that I didn't feel it until about a week after implantation (2nd PM). Doc had me meet the Medtronic Rep at the hospital (it was a weekend) and he played with it and found that by reducing the voltage from 4 to 2 volts, I no longer felt that annoying and distressing "Tapping" feeling. Good luck!

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