Happy to be tweaked,,,,

Happy New Year fellow pacemaker peeps! Hope you all had a great Holiday season. Well last time I posted I had been somewhat concerned that I was pacing so much but mostly when driving my SUV, which so happens to have a keyless ignition system. After conducting an experiment of driving my husbands truck which is just your normal old ignition starting beast, I discovered that I was pacing while driving it as well. As the days went on I realized that I was pacing all the time and it was driving me crazy! So I went back to see the cardiologist who said that my pacemaker is doing what it should be doing and if it wasn't then I would be going into 2nd degree heart block, which is the reason I had the pacemaker installed in the first place. I asked him if I should be actually feeling it pace and he said some people do and some don't. He had me come back (today) to see his pacemaker technician who did some tweaking and adjusted the voltage from 3.5 to 2.5. Now that was 6 hours ago and guess what? I can still feel when I pace, but ever so slightly. What a relief this is!!! So thanks to all of you who said "go back to your cardiologist"!

Lori who is "happy to be tweaked"!

7 Comments

Another bright spark

by Tattoo Man - 2012-01-14 01:01:06

Hi Irrigins, an early symptom of my needing a Pm was when , while driving my van I keeled over and was heading for the kerb..( only doing about 10 mph at the time.)..Mrs TM was quick to respond, all was ok..phew !!

My point is, even when driving it is possible to have a very low heart rate,...so maybe your PM was just doing its job ....is that too simplistic ??

Take care

Tattoo Man

interesting thought

by lriggins - 2012-01-14 04:01:34

Well Tattoo Man, that is very interesting because I do have a slow heart rate to being with but I have never heard of have a lower rate when driving. So it very well was doing the job it was intended to do. I do still feel it now that it is turned down, just so "hard" of a shock!
Lori

Difference between ICD and pacer

by ElectricFrank - 2012-01-14 07:01:42

Even though most ICD's are also pacemakers there is a difference in receiving a kick. A paced pulse is on the order of a few volts and just stimulates a contraction. In fact my guess is that it is not the shock that can be felt, but rather that the contraction is different. This could be due to the shock being delivered to a different area of the heart wall than a natural pace.The reason the voltage makes a difference is that a higher voltage stimulates more of the heart wall and causes the contraction to spread faster over a larger area. This would make it feel noticeably different. I also suspect that higher pacing voltages can contribute to increased PVC's due to being more irritating to the heart.

An ICD shock is totally different and has a level of several hundreds of volts. I doubt anyone misses feeling them.

frank

mini shock

by lriggins - 2012-01-14 10:01:59

Frank, that totally makes sense to me because it did feel like having mini shocks everytime I paced. So we shall see how it goes as I can still feel a slight "shock" but nothing like it was!

Lori

That often helps

by ElectricFrank - 2012-01-14 12:01:45

The voltage is the level of the pace that is applied to the heart to cause a beat. With higher voltages it is sometimes possible to feel the mini shock. There is also another benefit of the lower voltage. This reduces the drain on the battery and increases it's life.

frank

You might need to raise the base rate

by wjhughes420384 - 2012-01-15 09:01:53

When I first got my pm i could feel when my pacemaker first kicked in. i would actually begin to feel woozy then the PM would kick in and i would clear right up. I talked to my technician about it and she raised the base rate at which my PM would kick in from 60 to 70, i have not felt that feeling since.

twiking

by prettylady - 2021-03-15 14:33:24

how do you know when you need twiking. I was told if I do not feel right. call and we will twik it.  what does all the mean. I have new  i just had my pm a month ago baby advise will help. thanks

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I, too, am feeling tons better since my implant.