Father with pacemaker, low blood pressure, dizziness...

My 72 yo father had a pacemaker put in a few years ago and in the last few months he has had dizzy spells so bad he has to take a break while walking from the living room to the kitchen. He had a severe UTI a few weeks ago with a high fever and major confusion and took Cipro for 15 days. He had his pacemaker tuned up last week and since then his dizziness and low blood pressure has gotten worse and he has had diarrhea, nausea and dry heaves. The local doc says he’s dehydrated, but I’m having a hard time believing that’s it. I’m wondering if anyone here has had any experience with this or could point me in the right direction. I’m wondering if he’s having Ischemic strokes. Thank you for your help. I live in a different state and he doesn’t have the Internet, so he can’t do any research like I can. 

2 Comments

It's going to be tough to get an answer here

by PacerRep - 2018-03-04 14:08:54

There certainly is a lot more to this picture that what you can probably provide to us, so to generalize....

If someone "tuned up" his pacemaker and he got worse, go back and have them undo what they did. But it could be unrelated.

If he's degenerating as you suggest, just go to the ER to be safe, have a full panel workup with boodwork completed. If stroke is a worry, hopefully he is on an anticoagulant

Sorry I'm not much help on this one, but I didn't want your post to go unnoticed.

One in Ten

by Terry - 2018-03-04 19:38:33

When the pacemaker lead is placed deep in the ventricle, one in ten will develop what your doctor calls "pacing induced heart failure." The heart wasn't intended to work this way. According to pacing research literatuer, heart failure can be reversed by pacing the ventricles at what is call the His bundle, the source of natural ventricular activation. See www.His-pacing.org or Google His bundle pacing.

All the best to your Dad,

Terry

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