afib

Hi evevyone ,I had my pm almost two years .Two weeks ago had apm readout ,came up with 3 events 20 days apart ==afib over 400 bpm four 5 min.i never felt them my doc said lower heart rate at the time was 70 bpm whats up doc said not to worry ,confused .richie thanks

2 Comments

A.Fib

by sputnick - 2009-09-25 03:09:43

Hi Richie,
I had a pacer check 2 weeks ago and on my printout it mentioned 7 A.M.S. episodes which stands for auto mode switch. My longest one was only 8 secs, and most were 6 secs, one was 256 b.p.m.
It was explained to me on this site a while back that once the pm detects the atrial rate going above a certain limit the P.M disconnects the ventricle from tracking the atria and paces it at a lower safe rate till the atrial rate drops again.
I posted after my last check-up to see if this high rate was anything to worry about and had a reply to say that it was probably a paroxsymal (i think I've spelt that right but not sure)! atrial flutter/fib, and was really nothing to worry about unless it becAME MORE FREQUENT AND FOR LONGER TIMES.
I mentioned it to my cardiologist when I saw him yesterday and he said the same, he suggested taking a low dose aspirin maybe cos he said it could, if occuring frequently possibly make you more susceptable to having a stroke.
If you are still worried you could ring your cardiology clinic and see what they say.
Hope this helps jan

short Afib episodes

by golden_snitch - 2009-09-25 06:09:12

Hi!

My pacer recorded these short Afib episodes, too, but I never felt them. During my last EP study/ablation I went into Afib, but it stopped after a few minutes. So, my cardios said it's nothing to worry about, unless it becomes more frequent or lasts longer. Since I'm back on anti-arrhyhtmic meds (for other arrhythmia), my pacer hasn't recorded any more episodes.

When you go into Afib, not every beat of the ~400 is conducted into the ventricles, there are even patients with Afib who have bradycardia. What's usually a good sign for Afib is that the heart rate gets very irregular.

When you have a complete heart block, the pacer will as jan explained stop tracking the high atrial rate and pace you at a lower rate. However, if your av-node is functioning well or you have on/off heart blocks, the pacer is rarely able to disconnect the atriums from the ventricles. As long as the av-node works it will follow the rhythm in the atriums. It does slow the rhythm down though like in Afib when it doesn't let every beat of the 400/minute pass on into the ventricles. And in case you have bradycardia because of Afib, the pacer will pace your ventricle and make sure that you have a stable, appropriate rate.

Best wishes
Inga

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