shock from pm caused by afib

just wondering last night about 8pm while sitting doing nothing i got what felt like a shock in my chest area and in the general area of the PM i checked my pulse and blood pressure pulse was about 125 and bp was 143/88 which is not so bad,But through out the night i could feel my heart was beating iradictly(spell?) and still fast so i assumed it was a bout with afib however never feeling thisk shock thing before I decided to call my Dr and they got me right in thank god for small towns lol anyway a PM rep was there and checked it out for me and i was right i was in afib but apparently had been most of the day but at about 8pm my heart rate went way up so while i was talking with the Dr he came back in and said he wanted to check one more thing and apparently my PM has a setting that kinda trys to fix the AF and it was on so he thinoprolols that shock was actually the PM trying to fix the af/high heart rate he said that when it does do this it usually does not work so he turned that function off part of what he said was something about ramping but i cant remember the other word he used for the fuction that the PM tried to do I have had this since 2005 so i was surprised when he said this and turned it off the Dr then said he wanted me to start taking metropolol er succinate along with my tambacore to try and slow my heart down i am only pacing in upper chamber about 60% of the time and next to nothing in the lower Dr said i seem to have a period of AF about once a month so hopefullythings will workout ,Thanks for letting me bend your ear with this ....Valerie
this was posted originally on the 27th but did not see it on posts

1 Comments

Afib, drugs, and PM

by Theknotguy - 2014-03-30 12:03:55

Dizzy is right. Certain foods can trigger afib for some people. Alcohol, chocolate, and caffeine to name a few. Notice I say, "can" - it doesn't mean it always holds true for you.

Two things. 1) I'm surprised your EP turned the APP (Atrial Preference Pacing) off on your Medtronics PM. I have the same, and the APP has helped with my afib. My EP said they haven't reached a conclusion about APP helping, but it didn't hurt either. I've noticed with the APP turned on my sessions of afib have gone down dramatically. So it's a question to revisit with your EP. Should the APP be turned back on?

When they first turned on APP for me, I went through about a month of weird heart rhythms. I think my heart was going into afib and the APP was initiating a counter beat to stop the afib. After four weeks everything settled down and I'm having fewer instances of afib. I'd have an argument with my EP if he said he was going to turn APP off now.

2) You have sleep apnea. Is your afib being triggered when you go into a deep sleep and the sleep apnea shuts down your autonomic nervous system? My PM paces 23/24% of the time. Most of it when I'm in a deep sleep. So apparently as I go into the deep sleep my autonomic nervous system shuts down both my breathing and my heart. My brain is screaming, "Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!", kicks in a lot of adrenaline, and I wake up with my heart racing. It's not the PM causing the problem, it's my sleep apnea. I don't really care if I get a few funny feelings as I know the PM kicked in and did its job.

With your sleep apnea, when was your last sleep study? Also, does your CPAP/BPAP have a recording device? If it does, you may want to get a printout to show if your afib is being triggered at the same time your CPAP is showing that you have stopped breathing or had some other kind of apnea episode.

Lastly, your diabetes is going to cause heart problems. Are you keeping your diabetes in check? Having your blood sugar get out of whack can cause some of the problems with the heart too.

The Metoprolol with help with the afib. I'm on it too. But if you can see some kind of pattern with your afib, you'll be in a much better position to take care of yourself. Not saying you'll see a pattern with your afib, but as Dizzy said, you may see something that triggers it.

Hope this helps.

Theknotguy

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