Passing out with pacemaker

My mom recently had a pacemaker put in because she was passing out due to low heart rate. She was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago when she ended up in the hospital after passing out while driving. Today, we went in for her wound check. All of her vitals were good, pacemaker check and tests looked good. Out of nowhere she passed out again. Has this happened to anyone else? We're waiting for the doctor to review everything and hopefully call us back. Being new to this I wasn't sure if this was something that happens with new pacemaker recipients or if this was unusual. We were both under the impression that the pacemaker would stop her passing out episodes. Any advice or information anyone can share is very much appreciated. 

1 Comments

what causes the passing out

by Tracey_E - 2017-05-30 22:04:58

Did she ever have a tilt table test? All the pacemaker will do is raise the heart rate when it's too low, prevent pauses, and it can be programmed to help the rate go up on exertion. If she's passing out from a low rate, then the pacer will fix it. If it's a combination of blood pressure and heart pauses (tilt table diagnoses this), then the pacer is only going to help with half the problem. Diet and medication can help with blood pressure, if that's the problem. 

Another possiblity is her settings just need adjusted. I nearly passed out about a week after I got my first one. I had a second minor problem we didn't know about because my main condition masked it. Fix the first problem, and the second problem was suddenly clear. Once we knew what was going on,it was an easy fix. They adjusted my settings and it never happened again. They can look at the pacer's interrogation report and see what it was doing when she passed out.

Other things like blood sugar and hydration can cause fainting. Don't assume it's cardiac.

Hopefully it's an easy fix!

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