Doing exercise

Hey, basically im 17 and a student, had PM for about 6-7years.
Yesterday at college we had the Royal Marines doing training with our class (Want to be in police so we keep doing training with armed forces). About 3/4 of the way through I started to feel dizzy and light headed and thought I was going to faint. 10minutes I was fine again. Is this normal when you are doing strenuous exercise with a PM. Its the most that Ive done ever :) But I just wanted to know if because of my PM if I should be doing less.Also stupid but your PM cant like break if it goes above a certain rate can it?
Thanks
PirateFly

2 Comments

No one responded?

by turboz24 - 2012-02-22 01:02:16

Ok, I do not have a PM (ICD), but I can ask the required questions....

You would need to communicate what your settings on your PM are.

Minimum heart rate... probably 60-70 bpm
Maximum heart rate......
Is your rate response on?

If you have an on demand pacer (as in your sinus node is fine, you might just have a slow heart rate), the PM should probably not affect the maximum heart rate your heart can reach on it's own. If you need the PM all the time (sinus node issues or AV block), if the high rate on your PM is set to say 160, you sinply will not exceed that HR and feel tired, light headed, etc.

See if you can find out what your settings are, definately tell your EP, and get back to us.

There are a lot of people on this forum who are sent out from the PM implant with basic settings without any regards to their actual lifestyle. The base settings I'm sure works fine for a couch potato, but not for anyone young and active.

SOB & Exercise

by SMITTY - 2012-02-22 08:02:53


To answer you last question first, no you cannot break your PM by making it go above a certain rate. To try to explain why that can't happen, let's take a look at what and how your PM works.

Your heart has a natural pacemaker that has the primary job of sending electrical impulses to each chamber of your heart to make them beat. The PM monitors the function of that natural PM. The PM has a low set point and a high set point and when it detects the heart's natural PM not sending impulses fast enough to keep your heart beat above the low set point it sends the necessary impulses to keep your heart rate at least as high as that set point. When the hart rate reaches the high set point the PM continues to monitor your heart rate but so long as that rate is at or above that high set point the PM does not send impulses. It is only a monitor.

As for you starting to feel dizzy and light headed when exercising, I suggest that you talk to your Dr about this. My guess is this is happening because your heart not beating fast enough to supply the blood flow you need with these exercises. There could be other factors involved, but that is my first guess. If it is lack of blood flow it is possible that your PM can increase your heart rate as needed to overcome this problem.
I see that you have a Medtronic PM. If is like my Medtronic PM is has a feature call Rate Response. Without the RR my heart rate will not exceed about 90 BPM, but when I participate in physical activity that calls for a faster heart rate the RR can increase my heart rate to about 110 BPM. (The max rate would be higher for young people) That is the reason I say see your Dr, because if there are no other heart problems it could be that all you need is the RR turned on. If it is already on (some are not turned on until there is a need) all you need is its settings changed.

Now to repeat one thing, avoid hard blows directly on the PM implant site and I know of nothing you are likely to do that will harm your PM.

Good luck,

Smitty

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My eight year old son had a pacemaker since he was 6 months old. He does very well, plays soccer, baseball, and rides his bike. I am so glad he is not ashamed of his pacemaker. He will proudly show his "battery" to anyone.