Pacing percentage

I recently had a pacemaker checkup. They said that I was pacing 90% of the time in the top chamber. I have always run around 65% of the time. What does this mean? I was wonder if my hear was getting weaker. I've had my PC since Dec. 2006

2 Comments

Probably Means Nothing

by Tommy-2 - 2011-08-08 04:08:07


It could mean nothing or it could mean a couple of different things, none of them bad. If you have had a pacemaker checkup recently they could have increased the low setting and that will make your pacemaker pace more. More likely it means your heart's natural pacemaker is not working as well as it was and your pacemaker is having to do more of what you got it for in the first place. It does not mean your heart is getting weaker. One other thing, it could be a temporary situation and you will be back to your 65% pacing next time. Above all, don't worry about it because like I said you got the pacemaker to make your heart beat faster and it is just doing a little more of the work you got it to do. The only real downside is the increase pacing may shorten the battery life a little, but not enough to be concerned about.

Tommy

Depends on why you are paced

by donr - 2011-08-14 12:08:41

Also depends on what your natural heart rate is & which part of your heart is paced - A or V.

F'rinstance - I'm a natural 72. Have been all my adult life. They cannot adjust a PM to any rate other than a multiple of 5. They set me originally at 80 - made me feel perpetually anxious & agitated. Dropped me down to 75. Now felt normal. Now, that's pacing in the Atrial chambers. Since that's where all heart electrical activity starts, guess what - I get paced a VERY high percentage of the time because the PM is looking for a pulse out of the AV node at a rate of 75 BPM. My AS node wants to put one out at a rate of 72; slower than 75, so I get a higher BPM than natural. Feels fine, however, but is NO BIG DEAL. Been over 8 yrs, so I cannot recall why WE (Cardio & I) selected 75 as opposed to 70, but we did & it works fine.

Now - I have a dual lead PM - A & V leads, since I have an AV block & got irregular beats from my V chambers. That got complicated by a Post-PM condition after about 6 yrs of excessive PVC's. The PVC's were killed by drugs, that also give me bradycardia (Slow heart rate). My drug created "Natural" rate is now about 55 BPM. Too slow compared to my real natural rate of 72, so that would make me REALLY feel like crap all the time & want to go to sleep & feel like a slug otherwise. That's taken care of by the PM, keeping me at 75 BPM. But I still have the block, which slows down SOME of the A-V pulses, causing my V chambers to be paced about 13% of the time. The net result is that when looking at my download history, it shows that my atrial chambers are paced 99+% of the time. (That means that my AS node occasionally gets to run the train.) The data looks like:

AP-VS - 86%
AP-VP- 13%

AP= A paced; VS= V sensed; VP= V Paced

The A Sensed data is all fractional percentages.

When I first got my PM, I was concerned about the high percentages of being paced. But, I sat down & looked at WHY it was happening & realized it really meant nothing, just a by-product of numbers. I realized that each beat of the heart is essentially independent of all others. The heart's "Timer," the AS node, gets reset after every beat & runs down to the point where it sends out the next pulse. You PM is sitting there, watching, waiting, preparing, for the next pulse. The accuracy of your PM's digital timer is greater than that of your AS node, so if that expected pulse doesn't come out on time (or maybe early) the PM takes over & sends out a pulse, starting the whole heart beat sequence.

I would say "Ask your Cardio why" - watch him/her squirm - they probably will not know the answer.

Don

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