Pulse

Question, was filling a little tired after a long day of doing alot of little things. Had my pacemaker bu in about ten weeks ago and have had not one problem. but I checked my B/P and pulse and it came out fine except the pulse read 51 and with the pacemaker in it's not suppose to go below 60. So I got my wifes monitor and checked and my pulse was 66 and checked about two hours later and it was 61. Have any of you had your pulse go below what your pacemaker is set for?? Thanks for any help AL

3 Comments

Both of you thanks.

by Caguy - 2012-11-05 05:11:14

Thank God for this forum. So many people don't know theres help out there, all they have to do is look and you have good people ready to help.. Again Thanks AL

PVC's - Don't Panic...

by donr - 2012-11-05 08:11:57

...YET!

I'll betcha that you had a bunch of PVC's (Premature Ventricular Contractions) If you are inexperienced at pulse checking, you often do not sense the premature contractions of the Ventricles. Since those come early (Premature), they are lighter than normal because they have not FULLY filled w/ blood.

If that is the case, you are lucky that your wife's monitor piked them up, because that is NOT always the case w/ home monitors!

Important question:::::Have you used the monitor immediately after checking w/your fingers? PVC's occur almost randomly - just because you have them NOW does NOT mean you will be having them in 5 minutes - or even in another 30 seconds.

Here's what I wrote to someone a bit over a week ago. If you want to know more about PVC's, respond here & I'll give you "PVC's 102," the follow on course to this one.


Begin paste:
PVC's
Comment posted by donr on 2012-10-20 20:46.
Has anyone mentioned that term to you? It means Premature Ventricular Contraction.

It is the scariest arrhythmia known. Just for the reasons you described.

When it happens, you have one beat where the Ventricles contract before they are full of blood, giving the sensation of a "Missed beat." Following that is a beat that is heavier than usual that you really sense - heavier than usual because the ventricles have a bit more blood in them than normal.

Ask them if you have any of those when you get downloaded. They are benign in small numbers - small being anything up to 33 - 40%. Check yourself & see if you have felt any longer periods of no heartbeat - meaning you had a RUN of PVC's. That can be even scarier than a single one. I was having surgery on a foot under local two weeks ago & as soon as they injected my foot, my PVC's started. I had several runs of half a dozen or more. As soon as it was over, my HR returned to normal sinus rhythm.

Stress will do that to you & it sounds like you are pretty well stressed out right now. Not at all unusual for new PM hosts!

You are looking for bad things & of course if you look you will find! You have yourself hyper-sensitized to your heart beats & consequently you find bad things.

Next time you see the Dr. tell him EXACTLY what you have said in your post. Tell him you need reassurance, then IF he gives it to you, stop looking for trouble & accept it.
End paste

PVC's are benign in small numbers - they will not kill you, but will scare the newbie to death!

Don



readings

by Tracey_E - 2012-11-05 10:11:37

Don't trust the monitor because paced beats can mess it up, count it manually. Odds are your hr did not actually go under your minimum. Sometimes it'll be a beat or two off, that's because it's programmed in fractions of a second, not by the minute, so it's ok if it's not exactly 60.

And ditto what Don said about pvc's, it's easy to miss them and count wrong. When in doubt, ask your dr to interrogate the pm. Make a note of the day/time you suspect you were low.

You know you're wired when...

You participate in the Pacer Olympics.

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