Joined the team 3/29/12-My experiences leading up

• by jds66
• 2012-03-31 11:03:15
• Surgery & Recovery
• 1580 views
• 8 comments

I did a great amount of reading here before my pacemaker was inserted on 3/29.

Here is my chance to give back to someone who might be wondering what my experience was like and for someone pondering if this is the right approach to take to help your quality of life.

I am an active 46 year old man- or was fairly active, getting slowed down the past few years by the normal fatigue that I thought was "old age" (ridiculous to think that I thought an early 40's male is old age even-but I knew I was slowing down).

I had bradycardia since at least 2002, and even went for a full workup of tests in 2007, in which my heart rate was into the thirties during nights and in the upper 40's during the day.

As a younger man, my heart rate was always in the 60's, never had trouble exercising, etc. Something- still unknown, messed with my hearts electrical system.

I was a decent athlete still into my mid thirties and forties, but my level of fitness wasnt such that my heart rate should be that low. Being only 41 years old in 2007, the doc then said, "your too young for a pacemaker, just drink more coffee".

Maybe not the best advice, but not knowing all that much, just figured that well, I had to live with the low heart rate- heck, I was still able to play sports, jog a couple times a week, and stay active-

The lightheadedness I just attributed to "stress" and luckily I had never passed out from it, but looking back, it was more than stress causing my symptoms, my body was fatigued.

I combated these feelings of fatigue with a more frezied life pace, almost like I was trying to compensate for my low heart rate by being constantly active with something. Once I stopped doing and doing, the fatigue would set in. To offset the fatigue, I would start "doing" again- which was a spiral of activty that was just getting me no where.

My ability to even think clearly was getting dimished. The brain fog I started to have the last year or so was really alarming to a person who makes a living in IT- I could do my job, but only at a base level.

My work was suffering, my life certainly was not optimal, and I decided to do a medical investigation as to why I felt so lousy all the time.

With the help of a very determined girlfriend- who knew that underneath the fatigue there was a person worth helping, I began that search in January 2012 again.

I repeated many of the tests I had in 2007. The tests showed exactly the same thing as 5 years ago, 32 bpm at night (three different holter monitors that I did) and an average heart rate of about 47 during the day.

I ruled out sleep apnea after getting those tests and even paid 400 dollars to get a lyme disease test from a lyme literate doctor.

When those tests came back in the negative, and nothing conclusive could be found as to what caused this condition, I decided that I did not want to sputter though another year, which I am sure I could have done.

The cost would be another year of not knowing why I felt like I did- and knowing that I have the very slow rate, doing nothing was like having a possible fix to the problem and me denying that there was something to fix.

I choose the path that was probably harder to take, to try and fix the problem, and see if this would get back the more healthy version of myself.

On 3/14, I scheduled the surgery for 3/29 (of course, being the frenzied me- I had a Springsteen concert to go to the night of 3/28- that I just had to go to).

Those two weeks waiting, I swear, all the symptoms I had over the past ten years magnified, as if they wanted to haunt me one last time, or try to scare me to change my mind, or do any one of several things to scare me out of my wits, to try to make me change my mind and keep the status quo.

Realize that may happen, dont fall for it, a better future is worth that temporary agony pre surgery.

The surgery is suprisingly simple- most of the anguish that I felt up to that point was understandable, but as I see now, I have had more pain after getting injured on the softball field than I do currently.

I was even awake during it, though the nurses probably wished I was put asleep(being I was a chatterbox I am sure), as we talked non stop about music and things- I have had worse visits being at the dentist that is how simple this procedure felt.

I was doing plenty of things the next day(heck, my day one post surgery was only yesterday), and I was very careful with not lifting my arm too high, dont want the two leads to go anywhere.

I am not a good "rester" - I have to learn how to gear myself down now, as the frantic pace that I felt was keeping my heart beating, pre pacemaker, that is no longer needed.

That hopefully, will be a gift from this.

I can say that at my current initial pace of 60 bpm, a pace which I had when I was a high level athlete back in my late twenties and early thirties, I do all ready feel more energy.

I am a blessed quick healer, so the pain from the insertion spot on my left shoulder is not at all bad, I only used Tylenol for the pain.

I also made a device to keep my arm from lifting over my shoulder at night, as trying to sleep with the sling was just too much. So, some velcro around my wrist, a belt from one of my pair of baseball pants(any belt will do) and a piece of string tied between the two did the trick last night well and kept the arm low and sleeping better.

I will also report that this is not an immediate panacea for your woes- if it was a fix for everything, they would be putting pacemakers in every one!

I still am a bit lightheaded- but I believe that it is my body adjusting- it took ten years to get my body in a state this bad, it will take more than two days to recover.

To those that are "young" and "look to healthy to have a pacemaker", my suggestion is dont let things go as long as I did.

I believe my doctors back in 2007 were a bit thrown that I "looked" the part of an athlete- was not overweight, have some muscle on me, even a tan!

But, I really had a heart rate in appropriate for my body- Looks I believe, even fooled my doctors- and probably since I did well on treadmill tests and never passed out, I got the "Drink some more coffee" prescription- irony is that I have horrible side affects from caffiene.

This post is for the new timers, we are only new around town once, so this is my story and my time to give some hope and comfort to someone reading late at night, on your laptop, worrying about what this will be like-just like I was only a few short weeks ago.

The rest of my story is to be written, and I hope to share more experiences here with others and gain the valuable advice from those who have walked so long in shoes I am just getting into.

May your procedure be successful!