New to PM and bugs have been ironed out!

• by nicbridge
• 2011-11-17 09:11:02
• Checkups & Settings
• 1425 views
• 3 comments

I posted here a couple of weeks discussing my new PM and shortness of breath issues.

Outcomes have been good but here's a general outline for others who might be looking for answers.

After being slighly misguided by a PM tech (not my regular one) into believing my funny beat feelings were ectopic beats I had a much longer session with the regular tech. Whilst I was fitted with a PM for 3rd degree AV Block which lasted for some 12 hours it seems I dont pace that often and on arrival at the Docs office I wasnt pacing at all. The initial thoughts were "no pacing - no PM issues" but whilst sitting there I started pacing sometimes for primary, sometimes secondary block. That funny feeling I was having was pacing! Between the tech and cardio they adjusted a couple of parameters (one was from DDD to DDIR mode the other involved a discussion of wenckebach response which was feedback from my other cardiologist after a treadmill exercise test) and much to my relief the cardio increased the maxium HB from 120 to 150 (in line with ElectricFranks suggestion!)

Results - Absolutely ******** brilliant! Now the only hard breathing I get is exactly what I would expect from a slighly unfit, overweight 47 year old male! Even the funny feeling was much less noticable. The tech's comment was that they dont get many "younger" patients and that us babies can be harder to adjust! (I know there are plenty my age and younger here but thats all I have heard from medicos since - "youre young to have a pacemaker").

One other thing to mention prior to the PM (about 2 years prior) I was diagnosed with Adult onset asthma which was confirmed by ventolin response tests. I did experience some "harder breathing" issues whilst doing hard walks but blamed this on the asthma. I had had a couple of treadmill tests prior to the PM and no block issues were flagged (although there was slight conduction lag). The "blame it on asthma" hard breathing has now gone with the correctly adjusted PM. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I am now doing hard uphill walks well and in a fit of total stupidity ran up a hill just to see how I went!

One thing that the PM Cardio was suprised by was that my other cardio organised an exercise stress test after my PM was fitted. In this case I think it helped as it highlighted the problems but it seems that stress tests arent usually used with PM's as the PM's mask results. Comments anyone?

That also means I am now quite confident for the upcoming family trip to Canada and the US and 12 days skiing at Whistler (if I hadnt been able to do the latter - it wouldnt have been pretty!)

Thanks All