Help! Is there anyone out there like me?

I am so frustrated. I recieved a PM on Mar 23 at Mass General Hospital where my Doctors don't have anyone else like me. They can't seem to figure out how to set my PM. I have second degree heart block and a very high hear rate when I exercise. Before my PM my heartrate would drop from 160's or so to the 80's and stay there for a couple of minutes causing me to become dizzy and light headed. Then my rate would jump back to the 130's even though I was resting. Now that I have my PM it seems it works fine when this occurs when I am in the 140-160 range. But the PM will not "kick in" when my heart rate is up in the 170's. They keep trying to tweek it , but its' just not working. I took a step class today and my heart rate went from 173 to 80, stayed there for about 1 minute and then dropped again to the 50's and stayed there for a minute before jumping to 150 while I walked the hall way. I know my doctors are really trying hard, and they have been great, but I feel like a guinea pig as they just keep trying new adjustments. I teach at a health club so I really need to figure this out. If anyone else has a similar problem I would love to hear from them!

K

1 Comments

ask for stress test

by MSPACER - 2007-05-17 08:05:19

Ask them to do a treadmill test to see what is going on when you exercise. The pacemaker seems to be responding inappropriately when you exercise. They can also ask you to do some type of walking fast back and forth before the interrogation. The tech did that once with me to try to adjust my pacemaker. She made me walk really fast up and down the hallway of the building where my doctor's office is. Maybe you can run up and down some stairs a few times to see if you can capture the problem. Then the pacemaker can be interrogated and re-set.

Millie

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