The Pacemaker and heart

I had a pacemaker installed in December, 2012 and a recent fist visit to the pacemaker clinic for the required checkup. All was found to be fine. After a little adjustment in voltage, I can still feel when the pacemaker does "kick in." The techician said some persons are more sensitive than others.

MY QUESTIONS:
1. Do I assume when the pacemaker "kicks on" that my heart is falling below the 60 beat minimal preset level?
2. I also have Ocular Myasthenia Gravis (OMG), and the odds (80%) that I will evolve into General Myasthenia Gravis (GMG). Are there any members of the pacer club have either with OMG or GMG that would like to correspond with me. I need your wisdom!!!

2 Comments

PM Kicking in

by donr - 2013-03-20 01:03:28

What that means is that at least ONE heart beat took longer to occur than the programmed parameters in your PM so it took over.

All heart beats are individually timed by the heart's SA & AV Nodes. The PM times each & every beat individually. If any single beat is off & does not occur at the right time, the PM sends its signal to make it occur.

The PM takes the desired minimum rate & figures out what the elapsed times for all the events to occur would be for a single beat & uses that as its standard for functioning. F'rinstance - if the minimum is 60 BPM, that's 1 second per beat. The cardio programming the PM, decides how long the PM should wait after it senses that the beat has begun, puts that setting in for the PM to use to decide when to firre for the ventricle contraction. Decides how long the PM will wait for the next beat to start & puts that setting in. The PM senses everything the heart does. Those events don't occur when they are expected? The PM fires.

Don

Pacer kicking in!

by KapunaKane - 2013-03-20 05:03:22

Don:

Thanks for the prompt reply. I was probably reading into the "kicking in" concern without full technical information.

I started with Tachycardia and ended up with Sick Sinus Syndrome and in the ER with heart stoppage. I became overly concern with the number of times I could feel the pacemaker "kicking in" and out during each day. When I met in the clinic clinic days ago, the technician said it was operating fine. I told my wife she can put away my will for awhile!

Thanks again for the response and your interest to assist me.

KapunaKane

You know you're wired when...

Your pacemaker interferes with your electronic scale.

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