skipped beats with pacemaker?

Had pacemaker implanted March 2014. Been having episodes of skipped beats. Horrifying like your heart stops, flips. How can this be with a pacemaker??? Had Stress test done last week and then Echocardiogram Friday. Doc said stress test showed blood flow too slow at rest, but could be a false positive thus she ordered the echocardiogram. No results on that yet. Anyone else experience these skipped beats? If so did you see a doctor? Would appreciate any enlightenment on this matter.

3 Comments

skipped beats

by Tracey_E - 2014-07-26 03:07:49

We talk about our hearts in terms of beats per minute, but the pm doesn't work that way. If it's set for a minimum of 60, that means one beat per second. If you go a second and the heart doesn't beat, the pm will kick in and cause a beat. Often, what feels like a skipped beat is actually a small beat we aren't feeling, but it's there. Sometimes the atria can do a little half beat between the full beat. That's called a PAC, premature atrial contraction. When the ventricles do it, it's called a PVC. Both feel like missed beats, are annoyed as heck but also harmless. Good luck getting answers!

Skipped Beats

by PeteFindlay - 2014-07-26 12:07:00

The comments below are my experience with heart block - so skipping ventricular beats.

When I had the PM fitted, I suddenly realised after a couple of weeks getting used to it that I was STILL dropping beats, just like with my uncorrected heart block, and more frequently. This was quite a worrying shock at the time, as I thought that was precisely what the PM was supposed to stop!

Apparently, it's just the way my PM works - it's trying to let the heart do as much as possible without intervening, so it will allow drops, but only intervene if they persist.

Mine seems worse when the atrial pacing is artificially high. I was originally set at 60bpm minimum and noticed a lot of drops. Now set at 50, I rarely notice any. But... when they wind me up in 'test mode' above natural resting, it apparently shows up again! Guess it's just the way my heart reacts to being over-driven. When my heart rate is naturally raised, I have no issues at all.

A long-winded way of saying you MIGHT still notice dropped beats with a PM, and it MIGHT just be the way it's set up. With me, they adjusted a few things, and it's mostly gone away. More importantly, they explained (supplemented by a bit of Google research!) how the PM actually determines when to pace, which eased my mind a lot, too.

The important thing is you've noticed it, and your doc is looking into it. Hope you get it sorted soon.

Pete

Same for me

by Theknotguy - 2014-07-29 10:07:51

Right after I got my PM I got all sorts of unusual heart beats. Sometimes it would feel like my heart wouldn't beat and the PM would kick in and start a whole new pattern of heart beats. Other times I'd get a skipped beat or hollow chest feeling. I even had times where it felt like my heart just decided to stop and the PM had to take completely over. Not too bad except it felt like there wasn't enough juice in the battery to keep my heart going. Really weird feelings.

Anyway, over time the unusual feelings gradually went away. I'm ten months into having my PM and most of the time I forget it's there.

I also got some help. Surprisingly enough, a licensed massage therapist helped. She was able to chase down the muscle spasms that were giving me a lot of false sensations. Once the sensations went away I was able to mentally forget about the PM. Less stress, and fewer problems.

Unfortunately some of the heart problems are a moving target. What is going on today isn't what will be going on four weeks from now. So just as you get accustomed to one set of sensations another new set starts up.

Once you realize the PM doesn't got to sleep, doesn't quit, will always be there, it really helps. Being able to take that mental deep breath really helps too.

Hang in there, life does get better.

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