I Have a Question?

Hello everyone....thanks for all the warm greetings I received. This is problably going to sound dumb.....but, is it possible to feel the pacemaker adjusting or working to keep your heartrate above a certain rate? The doctor told me that the pacemaker would keep my heart rate from dropping below 60....well, when I am in afib my rate gets up to around 135 or more....I could have sworen that two weeks ago I started to feel like I did when my heartrate was dropping down to 17, but this time it was like before it got too extreme a feeling that I could feel something weird not a shock or anything but it was definitely a different experience for me......I mentioned it to my regular doctor during a scheduled check up and she kind of gave me a weird look. Am I going crazy?

Mike

5 Comments

Pacemakers

by SMITTY - 2009-01-15 09:01:28

Hello Mike,

No. I do not think you are going crazy. I suspect you have doctor that believes everything they have read, or been told, about pacemakers by the people that make them.

Before I go further, let me say I will never be guilty of saying "never" about anything a pacemaker can or cannot do. But, I will say you should never feel your pacemaker as it goes about doing what it is supposed to be doing. That is maintaining a steady and regular heart beat for you.

My guess on the reason you felt the same when you were having an A-Fib episode as you did when your heart rate dropped to 17 is that when A-Fib gets bad enough the heart cannot pump a sufficient amount of blood to keep things going as they should, which is the same thing that happens when your heart rate dropped to 17. I'll go further out on my guessing limb and say that as you were coming out of the A-Fib your heart rate tried to drop to an extremely low rate and your pacemaker was just as determined to keep it at 60 or above. But the fact is when our heart starts acting up after beating too fast or too slow, we can sometimes feel strange and unusual things. If those strange things are short lived and don't happen to often, try to ignore them or at least forget them when they are over. But, if the strange things are frequent, or you have pain with them, see your doctor.

I have no way of knowing if your pacemaker will ever let your heart do what mine does daily, but if it does the good doctor is all wet about that PM not letting your heart rate drop below 60. The low setting on my PM is 70 and for two years I have had episodes every day when my heart rate will drop into the mid-40s. The remainder of the time it will be 70, or slightly above. I can no longer count the times I have tried to convince the pacemaker doctors this is happening and like you about all I get is a weird look. So, while I know our pacemakers have a low setting that does not mean your heart rate cannot go below that setting. But, I don't worry about mine, even when I start having chest pain from a low heart rate. So far these episodes have been for 1 hour or less and seldom happen when I am doing nothing physical.

Now, with all of that said, let me add that I know a pacemaker is a wonderful invention and that it has kept many people, including me probably, alive. And anyone that has a pacemaker can die of a heart problem, but it is very, very unlikely that a problem that causes a person's death is in anyway connected to the pacemaker. That pacemaker will sit there and keep thumping away trying to do what it was designed to do. I really think our PM is more dependable than a digital wrist watch and more durable than the Energizer Bunny.

I wish you the best,

Smitty

self diagnosis

by Hot Heart - 2009-01-16 05:01:28

Hi there! Do all pacemakers do a self diagnosis? I'm only asking this because around about 10 every night i feel my heart beating faster and then it usually settles down. Could this be my daily check?

Um...

by heckboy - 2009-01-16 12:01:07

I don't think this what you were feeling, but my PM does a self-diagnostic once a day and if I'm awake, I can feel it adjust my HR as it tests the threshold.

Thanks for the Advice

by mikenc - 2009-01-16 12:01:54

Smitty, thanks for your input and I'm sorry to hear that you are having your low rate issues. Like you I don't believe evrything I'm told from the marketing material. What you said though does put me alittle more at ease. Thanks for taking the time to responded to my message.



Heckboy, thanks for your input, as well. It never occured to me that my pm might be doing a self-diag.

RE: self diagnosis

by mikenc - 2009-01-17 09:01:43

Hot Heart....I don't know the feeling I mentioned above only happened to meonce since I had my pm implanted in november......if you find out somewhere about this topic, please let me know..


mikenc

You know you're wired when...

You run like the bionic woman.

Member Quotes

I am just now 40 but have had these blackouts all my life. I am thrilled with the pacer and would do it all over again.