26 years with CHB, now paced

Fast Heart Rate

by Silversmith - 2009-08-20 09:08:18

Your type problem is not surprising if the rate response is on. I had to have mine turned off because a little activity like making up a bed would put my heart rate up over a hundred. You might ask your doctor if that could be happening to you.

yep

by Tracey_E - 2009-08-20 10:08:20

I got my first pm at 27 for CHB and went through the same thing! Our atria spent years going faster and faster, waiting in vain for the ventricles to catch up. My rate is still high- 70's resting- but it slowed down over the first year and the jumps while working out went away the first few months. I was working out regularly and feeling pretty amazing by 6 weeks.

Silversmith has a great point, ask if you have rate response turned on. You don't need with with CHB but sometimes they leave it on just because it's there. It'll artificially raise your rate when it senses activity.

The upside- I found I had more stamina and energy than I'd ever dreamed of! Things that would have worn me out before were suddenly easy to do. I'm 42 now and have been through several pm's, and still feel great.

by jm48 - 2009-08-20 10:08:42

Thanks for the replies. Its reasuuring to know that you went though the same thing TracyE. 6-8 weeks is the time frame my EP told me as far as my atrium adjusting to its new role.

Sounds like Rate Response

by ElectricFrank - 2009-08-20 11:08:18

Rate response was causing me all sorts of problems in the beginning. Just sitting in the hot tub with the jets on would drive my HR way up.

Try a simple experiment. Relax in an easy chair until your HR comes down to normal. Then gently use your thumb and index finger to vibrate the pacer back and forth fairly rapidly for a short time. If rate response is on your HR will start to climb.

If you just have simple AV block (sometimes called heart block) all you need is for the pacer to sense your atrial rate and use it to pace your ventricles. This give you a normal HR response to exercise. In this case there is no 6-8 weeks for your atrium to adjust. It will only needs to get the rate response out of the way.

I had the fast HR with exercise for the first 2 weeks. That was the time it took me to force the issue and have RR turned off. I walked out of the office and made a fast walk around the block with normal rate for me.

By the way it helps to get a copy of the pre and post checkup printout for yourself. Find the area where it shows the Mode setting. Mode DDDR is with rate response ON. Mode DDD is with it off.

best,

frank

If you don't have an issue at the high end...

by COBradyBunch - 2009-08-21 08:08:20

If you don't have an issue at the high end there is NO reason to have the pacer doing anything up there. My issue is an occassional total block where my heart takes little cat naps. Almost all the time it is fine, normal rhythem, normal response to stimuli yet when I had my pacer put in they originally were setting me for 60-120. I am a 50 y/o, active male with a resting HR of 60 bpm and would often drop below that during sleep (never below 50 while I was in the hospital getting this whole mess checked out)? Anyway, when they came in to do all the settings after my implant I quized the tech and we kept negotiating what my limits would be. She wouldn't drop the upper setting completely but set it to 140 and did some other things that she said would prevent it from throttling me back and we dropped the low end to 50. She also said she would not turn off the RR but talk to my Doc when I went in for follow up.

When I went to my doc for my one week follow-up and I had a chance to do even more research I was able to get them to scrap the high end completely, turn off the RR (since really my heart is fine as long as it remembers to beat) and although I still have a 50 bottom even though I tried to get them to drop me to 40 (battery life, I am all about conserving battery life and since I wasn't passing out except for when I went into complete multisecond pauses I figured I could deal with 40) but they said since I hadn't dropped below the 50 in the hospital and the pacer hadn't fired once since I was out that they wanted to stay at 50.

Anyway, I work out at least 5 times a week, have gotten my HR up to my theoretical max several times since surgery, normally work out at the 85% range and no problems. I look at it this way, I want my heart to be as normal as possible as much of the time as possible. No reason to to let it be if it can do it on its own.

I have exactly the same problem

by evejose - 2009-08-22 06:08:33

I've gone 34 CHB and had my 1st Pacemaker fitted 2 and a half weeks ago.

And seem to be having the same problem. My heart rate sits about 45 and often drops down to about 35. They set it to start with to pace permanently and I felt awful so they turned it off, my heart was racing and I was getting palipitations. They then turned it off and set it on back up, only to kick in if it went below 40 and I felt fine just as I did before the operation ( I wasn't really having any problems or symptons). My consultant then called me back in as he felt he wasn't offering me enough from the pacemaker, he wanted to cure the breathlessness and troubles I had with cardiac vascular exercise. They have discovered I have that I have an unusually long PR Interval(??) outside the settings of the rate response, so it wouldn't work for me without permanently pacing. So instead they've changed the settings to let me miss 1 in 4 beats, but kick in if I miss 2 in 4 beats. Hope this makes sense?

Not sure if this can be done for you. I do feel good, have more energy and don't get breathless climbing stairs anymore (use to think this was normal), but I'm still a bit sensitive.. My heart was racing and palpitations and chest pains came back again today, after a diet coke and a short walk. So watch this space. And i'll let you know If I'm offered anymore options?

How are you getting on with it? Interesting to hear from somebody even younger than me. It's been nearly 3 weeks now and I'm still ever so stiff and have lots of muscular pain. Probably overdoing it, as I have 2 young children and am still cleaning, cooking and running round like a mad person. They told me to live life as normal, but wondered if really I should try and rest?

Hope you feel better soon.

Eve x

I'm starting to notice a difference

by jm48 - 2009-08-23 09:08:46

I feel like I am slowly adjusting. Mine is in "DDD" mode, basically doing the job of my AV node. The first few days were pretty uncomfortable. I've always had an awareness of my heart beating away in my chest, so for it to suddenly be going twice as fast was a shock. I kept telling my family "I don't know you guys can walk around with your hearts beating this fast". Before the pacemaker my resting rate was around 41, and could go as high as 50 and I think down into the mid 30's when sleeping.

Immediately after the implant my resting rate was up in the high eighties. Each day after that my resting rate got progressively lower, and settled in the mid-high 60's. Still, standing up and walking around would send it racing to130 or higher. I'm finally starting to see that change. I can now get up and walk around without going much over 100, so its starting to look like its true that it just takes a while for the heart to adjust to the new situation.


Jesse