Questions!

Wow! Do I feel like I have missed out on a lot when I have not been on for a while. I have so many questions for everyone. I just got out of the hospital which it did not take me long to move and fine myself already needing to go into the hospital.
The doctor who saw me believes that I am or will be going into heart block. This is something different for me so I was hoping some of you wise people would be able to explain how you get this after pm? He messed with all my settings and decided to turn my ventricle pacing back on. I don't completely understand the only thing I know is it is a very different feeling.
I also got diagnosed with pneumonia while being in the hospital and would have never guessed that one. Had no symptoms. I hope everyone is doing well and hopefully soon I will get to catch up on all the past messages. Many thoughts and Prayers as always!

Tammy

1 Comments

PM settings and Heart blocks.....

by maryanne - 2008-08-26 09:08:47

Tammy,

I am sorry to hear you are having these difficulties. I don't know your history or what your intrinsic rhythm was prior to the PM....ie did you have bradycardia? sick sinus? Did you have a 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree block?

I will use myself as an example in order to help shed some light for you.

My diagnosis for getting my PM was for sick sinus syndrome. My underlying(intrinsic rate) normally is Sinus rhythm with a 1st degree AV block. But over the years my condition has gotten worse....largely due to getting older, but also as a result of the settings. On one of my more recent visits to the PM clinic where they were making adjustments I went into complete heart block.....they quickly changed my settings. They were trying to extend the life of my PM by changing settings but this only put me into complete heart block.....I have a dual lead PM.....my atrium is now 65% of the time paced and my ventricle 95 - 100% time paced. They have made many changes to my ADRL settings in the hopes of allowing me to be active ( ie. I run a lot)

The leads from the PM eventually do cause a certain amount of damage.....think of it this way....our hearts without the PM wants to do it's thing....then we introduce a PM and it wants to do it's thing....the two at times fight each other...which eventually puts stress on the heart...and effects the elasticity of the heart and can possilby make the natural heart less effective as a pump.....

Gosh, I hope I didn't confuse things here.....I was trying to keep it simple.....I hope some of what I said was helpful.....

Best of luck to you.....

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