Very recent PM Implant Questions

Received a St Jude 2210 implant on last Wednesday. Cardio Tech set the parameters to keep my heart between 60 and 120 to start out.

Today I had an A-fib event in the morning of 113 BPM and the PM seemed to pick it up after a few minutes and lower my beats, later my pulse went down to 43 BPM for a few minutes, this was in a 10 hour period recorded on my Garmin GPS watch chest strap.

Does this mean the PM is not working properly? puzzled? Hope to talk to someone on Monday. Any inputs appreciated.

malltura Sunday evening

4 Comments

Drop in HR on monitor

by ElectricFrank - 2010-08-02 02:08:12

The chest strap type monitors pick up the hearts electrical signals (ECG) and use them to determine HR. On some units the presence of pacemaker pulses will confuse the monitor into giving a wrong reading. The best way to check these situations is to use the old time method of feeling the wrist or neck pulse and checking it against a watch.

frank

A-Fib

by biker72 - 2010-08-02 08:08:17

It took a few adjustments on my PM to get rid of the A-fib. The tech was able to finally document the problem as some sort of reverse conduction that actually changed the settings of the PM.

Once the problem was identified and corrected, no other arrythma problems have developed.

A-Fib

by Bill T - 2010-08-02 12:08:05

JEM, I had the same PM implanted on June 28 and with the switch to Propafenone from flencide I was good until 10 day ago. I have had 3 A-fib episodes and each lasted 4-7 hours. BPM was varying from 95 to 115 and the same feeling as before the PM implant. My understanding of our PM is that it only paces if the sa node output is lower than the setting (70 bpm) in my case. If you HR actually went down in the 40s then the PM is not doing its intended job, it shouldn't go below 60 bpm. I believe the 43 bpm was a false reading. If you were doing something physical the 113 HR reading may have been triggered by the Rate Response setting. When I'm walking or mowing the yard my HR goes up to a 100 or so but then comes back down in a few minutes.

Bill T

Tech is telling a Fib

by ElectricFrank - 2010-08-03 01:08:39

There is no way that I know that "reverse conduction" could change the pacer settings. I don't claim to be able to prove it, but it is very suspicious.

Glad you got it corrected anyway.

frank

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I'm 35 and got my pacemaker a little over a year ago. It definitely is not a burden to me. In fact, I have more energy (which my husband enjoys), can do more things with my kids and have weight because of having the energy.