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I went back in yesterday for another visit. I put off going to the ER the night before because I knew that they couldn't do anything for me. I have had my pm for 7 weeks now and this entire time has been up and down for me. My heart has started to do most of the work and has gone back into tachycardia once again. I didn't think that this would be possible as they have burned so much of my AV and SA Node. As they changed more settings on the pm they told me that overtime I would just start to adapt to all the feelings I am feeling. I have been feeling very weak and like i'm going to pass out. As I was sitting in the room they were able to watch and see that my heart will drop really low and then kick back up really high and go back in forth doing this.
I haven't heard of that happening. I don't get to meet with my doctor until May 22nd they can't get me in any sooner. I'm confused on how these changes can be happening. They keep saying that my heart is trying to over power the pm. One lady said even though I feel like i'm going to pass out that I won't that the pm is always going to back me up. I guess I am getting more confused. Anybody heard of any of this happening? They keep telling me that i'm an interesting case and that it will all take time. How much time does this all take?
Sorry for the rant I just hate not being able to do as much as I would like.
Tammy

2 Comments

Question

by SMITTY - 2007-05-02 04:05:50

Hi Tammy,

Wish I could say I can help you but your problem is over my head. However, that doesn’t keep me from having an opinion about their saying “that overtime I would just start to adapt to all the feelings I am feeling.” I say that is a big bucket of horse apples. A pacemaker should not require the body to adapt to it. A pacemaker with the correct settings for a particular person will replace some the hearts functions; do it without being noticed, and no adaption required.

I did find your comment about sitting in the room and the hospital staff and doctors being able to see that your heart rate would drop really low and then come back up interesting. That is really what prompted me to write this. I have been going through the exact thing for a few weeks.

Now, before going further, let me point out that I have not had an ablation, so the similarities in our varying heart rates may be just be coincidence.

Last week I spent a few days in the hospital where they did, among other things, implanted my fourth stent in 7 years. When things got no better for me they finally got around to doing a PM checkup.

Let preface this with something just in case, but I’m sure you know that before our PM will send an impulse to make a heart chamber contract, it checks to see if the heart is sending out an impulse to perform this function. If the heart is sending an impulse the PM waits until the next beat to see it is needed. As it turns out, my heart is sending out signals that are strong enough for the PM to detect them and therefore do nothing, but the impulses are not enough to cause the heat chamber to contract. They tell me these are what we call PVCs or skip beats. (Please take this with a grain of salt, because all I’m doing here is repeating what I was told.) In effect my heart is faking out my PM with these weak signals. I can assure you that was news to me.

It has now been a week and nothing much has changed, except that I know I can get my heart and PM out of sync with a little physical activity. So I’m making adjustments. In other words I sit on my rump a lot more nowadays.

I tell you all this to let you decide if there is any correlation between what is happening to you and what I am experiencing. Could it be possible that your heart is also faking out your PM? If it that is so I know how miserable it makes you feel and I really hope you can get it taking care of soon.

Good luck,

Smitty

RE:

by tcrabtree85 - 2007-05-02 05:05:23

I did have some PVCs on my last check not as many this time. That is what they kinda explained to me in the ER last time and this time they really didn't tell me much.

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