St. Jude 5376 dual chamber pacemaker

Has anyone had difficulty adjusting to this pacemaker? After an extensive unsuccessful ablation for A-Fib, my A/V node was ablated necessitating the implant of this pacemaker, which was heralded to suppress A-Fib. For 9 months I could hardly walk from my car to my classroom ( a very short distance) while carrying a not so heavy bookbag and purse without stopping and leaning on the school building half-way. My doc said I was too anxious about it and it wasn't going to get any better. I went to Cleveland Clinic where the doc (I guess) reset the pacemaker lowering the MAX rate to 75 bpm w/o documenting it. Needless to say, life was difficult after that. Went back to my ablation doc after being hospitalized for 1 wk while he was in England and he finally called St. Jude and they suggested he take the A-Fib suppression off. He also had the max rate reset to 140 bpm. It felt as tho someone had taken a rubber band off my heart and I could breathe easier again. That was 2 yrs ago. I continue to suffer with rhythm problems and finally decided to take meds again this past January.

Today when I take my long walk (3 miles), my heart starts beating irregularly (under 200 bpm) and doesn't go back into rhythm for a minimum of 1 day. I have taken meds (verapamil) since Jan. but changed to rhythmol/toprol 3 wks ago and the rhythm has improved a little - until I extend myself physically. I am so tired of beint limited by the pacemaker or something and want to be active again to stay in shape. I'm on a 30-day event monitor again to hopefully determine where my heart is misfiring and how it's reacting to the meds. Has anyone else had problems with this model pacemaker? St. Jude's says mine is working fine. My heart must really be an electrical mess or something else is wrong. I've struggled to find the triggers. It was never exercise until recently.

6 Comments

St. Jude pacemaker

by maryanne - 2008-04-26 01:04:07

I do not have a St. Jude PM but here are a few thoughts....

Your comment: "After an extensive unsuccessful ablation for A-Fib, my A/V node was ablated necessitating the implant of this pacemaker,"

In reading this it leads me to believe that they tried an ablation before you had a pacemaker. If this is the case it tells me that you were already having electrical conduction issues with your heart. I also have to assume that you were on a variety of medications prior to your ablation in the hopes to eliminate your Afib, which obiviously didn't work which then necessitated the need for your ablation.

I don't know what your doctor told you about ablations...but I would hope he told you that they don't always work....sometimes they are successful and the ablations works for a certain period of time but often the person converts back to their underlying rhythm which in your case is your Afib.

In short the complications of your Afib necessitated the need for a PM. Your PM is most probably working just finet....it's that they haven't found the right combinations of drugs to help control your Afib....and when they did the ablation they weren't successful in finding the right electrical pathway in order to correct your Afib.

So now what it looks like is that you are faced with finding the right drug combination to control your Afib. Don't give up hope and don't stop excercising....maybe right now you can't walk 3 miles successfully but continue to do what you can and continue to work with your doctor in order to find out the right drug combination that works for you....sometimes it takes a little while....best of luck to you....keep us posted...cheers MAC :)

I also have St Jude 5376,

by afibber - 2008-04-26 01:04:17

And recently have had the very same problems with my pacemaker. I have chronic a-fib, and I also have had an a/v node ablation back in 1998, with out any problems. This is my second pacemaker, and gradually late last year I started to become short of breath (SOB for short). It became worse, I was hospitalized, treated as if I had exacerbation of asthma, the made me a steroid "zombie" , then my pulm couldn't find anything wrong with my lungs. Was then referred back to my cardiologist who thought that I needed a cardiac cath. That, also, was negative. I kept telling the doc's that maybe my pacemaker has to be readjusted..."no it's just fine". To make a long story bearabe, I had a cardio-pulmonary stress test (when you ride the bicycle) and my heart rate would not get any higher than 89. I could NOT breathe. The Dr. that did the Cardio-Pulm stress test kind of chuckled when I asked him what he thought was wrong, and he said "well, we know what it is, it IS your pacemaker!" So, I called my cardiac dr immediately, at which time he tried to blow me off, saying that the test results were not in. I just asked him one question "why does my heart rate not increase when I rode the bicycle at the carido-pulm stress test? " I was back in the office again within days and they changed my pacemaker from "DDDR" to DDIR". That did make a difference, but I am STILL short of breath.
I am beginning to believe that my pacemaker is not doing its job as it did in the beginning. It should not limit your activities. NOT is the key word. I have been paced for 10 years, and these last 6 months have been a nightmare. I am no dummy, and I am tired of getting blown off. The only heart med I am on is cardizem for break thru a-fib, and hctz. I have taken rhythmol before my pacemaker was implanted, but I only worked for a short period of time for me. I really think that it is defective. That's my opinion. To this day, I cannot walk into work carring my small bag, or carring nothing but myself, and I am short of breath. It is not due to weight issues. Or asthma issues. It is due to pacemaker issues.

Just had to write, thought I might shed a little light on the subject of the 5376.
A-fibber

St. Jude pacemaker

by Susan - 2008-04-26 04:04:16

I had and still have a St. Jude pacemaker (#2). I found it very important to have a St. Jude rep do the interrogation. My cardio thinks he knows all the answers but even he defers to the St. Jude rep. I had had other pacemaker clinicians do the interrogations and I have found their ability to address pacemaker issues to be quite limited. I would encourage getting a St. Jude rep to at least consult on your case.
From what you say though, your pacemaker could be working okay and the problems your are experiencing could be related to the side effts of afib. The pacemaker can work fine but that doesn't stop the afib .
Susan

St. Jude pacemaker

by NH - 2008-04-26 11:04:42

I too have a St. Jude pacemaker and my model # is 5610. The part I can relate to is when you said:
_____________________________________________
"For 9 months I could hardly walk from my car to my classroom ( a very short distance) while carrying a not so heavy bookbag and purse without stopping and leaning on the school building half-way."
_____________________________________________

I have this same feeling. I don't feel the PM is limiting me, I think it is my heart and the fact that I also have had the AV node ablation. One time I mentioned to my primary care Dr. about this and he said, "Your heart won't let you do certain things anymore." I have accepted this and don't worry about it. Of course, I am in my 60s and not so young anymore. I don't know your age and this could be a big factor.

No way can I walk 3 miles anymore. I used to do this all the time, but I have just accepted the fact that my body is getting older.

Where as the Dr. tells you that you are anxious, mine tells me that because I am overweight that is my problem. Who knows?

I don't have a lot of technical knowledge and I just wanted to post and let you know that someone has a lot of your same symptoms. Hang in there and stay positive!

Take care,
NH

My 5376

by jccampb - 2010-08-11 05:08:24

Well I don't know what I'm going to experience with mine (just got it put in as a replacement for my circa 2002 st. jude). They knew they were going to have to replace it and had said in the December / January time frame. Three months ago the St. Jude tech interrogated it and said 'gee maybe we'd better see you in in three months instead of the traditional 6 months.' When I went in a couple weeks ago? He said my old pacemaker had dumped three months of data (which we wanted) to save it's battery and now it was an 'emergency' that I get the thing replaced in two weeks time max. (unspoken 'or it'll stop and ;you'll die since you're 99% paced')
I have a mysterious 'fugue' that strikes me down, it's in my profile and you'll see, and have often wondered the relationship to the total failure of the A/V sinus node in 2002 and exacerbated by the settings on my pacemaker. All the cardio people I deal with at Hopkins look at the 'fugue' and say 'not my bailiwick it's someone else's problem'). I just had a friend relate to me today that another friend of his got a pacemaker? and complained to the Doctor that he was getting slapped down about 6 PM every day and had to lay down, no matter what he had been doing previously. The doctor said "no problem" had a change made to his pacemaker? and presto the symptom went away. I have never had that reaction from any of my Cardio people .. or the local St. Jude tech rep for that matter.
But I can't collect the 'data' for my own use (typically even in my 6 month interrogations? unless I bug them, they just say it's fine and give me no details or data)
I would NOT have gotten another St. Jude knowing what I know now.
1) no pdf file manual for the unit.
2) the "Merlin" technology seems to me to be a colossal scam to get more doctor's charges to your insurance company. I had a call back from a St. Jude person because I had visited the website and was trying to find out data.
He informed me that there was no way that I could download the data to my laptop beside my bed (computers all over the house here) That in fact (are you ready?) that I would need to get a dedicated analog phone line put in strictly for the unit to be interrogated with. (I stopped him right there and told him I had digital service here from Verizon and he said "oh well it'll work with that"... HUH?)
At which point? the data is transmitted over phone line (shades of 1981 technology) to the Cardiologist's office and then and only then up to "merlin.net" -sigh- to be evaluated.
This ... on a DAILY basis, so there would be DAILY charges to the insurance company.. I know full well if they'd designed it with half a brain in their heads? It would have had an option to be read locally by the implantee's computer. The other option is to go back to the normal drill I've always done? to go have it interrogated once every six months at the Cardiologist's office by the St. Jude guy.
So the "features" they added to this unit? are useless to me. No one asked me which vendor's pacemaker I wanted they just put in what they wanted. If these people really cared they'd have hurried up and made one that was MRI safe for those of us who really need MRI scans.
As Mr Phineas T. Barnum was attributed with saying (incorrectly he didn't) "there's a sucker ... born every minute"
-sigh-
jccampb

falling asleep

by Ziggy6 - 2012-06-25 06:06:55

Before I got my pacemaker I was falling asleep constantly. I was diagnosed with a third degree heart block and after the pacemaker in March I did better. Not a lot better (the rep. told me I'd feel like a new woman and I sure didn't) I was able to stay awake. In May the pacemaker representative adjusted the pacemaker and told me I would notice no difference but I started falling back to sleep all the time again. Should this be an issue I talk to with my cardiologist or rep about, any ideas?
Thanks.

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