confused

brand new member... here's why i am confused... on vaca and passed out in am drinking coffee..rushed to hospital via ambulance, heart block, 4 more episodes where i had zero (pauses) within 4 hours of arriving had a pacemaker put in....now home visit new cardi and electric dr and they said i should never had pacemaker put in... just beta blockers...
always low blood pressure and low heart rate.. am 56 yr old female...they kept telling me that i experience dizzy spells all my life and light headiness... i tell them never experience either.

is it strange to pass out 5 times within a couple of hours?

what to do? oh and one more thing.. had interrigations (3 so far in first month) first setting was 70, second they dropped to 40 and now they just raised to 50.

what to think?

4 Comments

no no no!

by Tracey_E - 2012-09-12 01:09:46

Beta blockers are the WORST thing if you are in heart block or having pauses. Go look up the warning on any of them, not to be used with heart block is probably the first thing listed. Beta blockers slow down a fast heart, make the heart not beat as hard, and lower your blood pressure. The only fix for a slow or pausing heart is a pm, no drugs will do it. If your heart pauses, the pm will keep it going. If it goes too slowly, the pm will speed it up. I’m no dr but if you were on a monitor that showed pauses when you passed out, then it was pretty much a no-brainer.

An easy test if you need it or not, how much are you pacing? When they test it, the report shows exactly how many times it has kicked in. It only has to kick in once to save your life.

Settings, it depends how you feel. If 70 feels good, then 70 is good. If it feels better at 60, then 60 is good for you. It can take a few tries to get it adjusted just right.

Confused

by Zia - 2012-09-12 03:09:13

Of course you're confused. Those "docs" are jerking you around and you might want to see about changing. In the meantime, ask them serious questions and insist on straight answers. The most usual cause for a PM is heart block and if that's what you had, then that was the way to go. TraceyE is right about the settings. Keep at it until you get feeling the best.

Beta Blockers

by Alma Annie - 2012-09-12 07:09:13

I agree with above comments totally. What is it with these doctors? A pm is good. When I had a little grumble, my EP just said "Well you are alive aren't you?" And that is it, you are alive. You will get so used to the pm it will just feel part of you and you can get on with your life.
Maybe a change of doctors?
Alma Annie

good dr

by Tracey_E - 2012-09-13 09:09:23

Having a good dr who listens to you and who wants you to be healthy and active makes ALL the difference! Some of them stay too busy so they don't have time to listen to us, or they don't have many healthy active patients so they don't know what to do with us. If that's the case, go find someone else if you can. My dr has gone the extra mile more than once to help me over a hurdle, times when I expected him to tell me to just accept a limitation but he wanted to keep trying to find a solution. My St Judes rep is the same way, the two of them work closely together. Good ones are out there, don't be afraid to shop around.

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