Recent Pacemaker Implantation

My mother had an emergency pacemaker implantation in December. Her heart rate fluctuated from 60 to at times 30-40 per minute. She said that she would be light headed,lose her balance, and felt like she was going to pass out although she never did. She ended up in the hospital one night because her blood pressure shot up and her primary physician put her on a beta blocker. Her heart rate ended up going down to 30-40 per minute. The cardiologist in the hospital allowed the beta blocker to be released out of the body for a day and a half and then decided to give her a pacemaker. She has now had to take Sotalol and Warfarin because after placing the pacemaker they found that she was experiencing AFIB. She also has low thyroid and is on Synthroid from before the placement of the pacemaker. I don't understand why a pacemaker could have caused her to have AFIB? So now she has a pacemaker and is dependent on all of these meds. Can anyone answer this question? Thanks for your help and support.

1 Comments

afib

by Tracey_E - 2013-01-14 10:01:16

It's possible she had the afib all along but was undiagnosed. Did they say why her heart rate was dropping, whether from the sinus node or av block? If it was av block, then the atria can be doing whatever it wants and we'd never know because the signal isn't getting to the ventricles. Once the pm fixes the block and gets the heart in sync, it's possible to find atrial problems we didn't know about because they were masked by the av block. Now that she has the pm to fix the low rate and can be safely medicated for the afib and blood pressure, she should start to feel better. No one wants to end up with a pm or on meds, but they can work wonders when they find the right combination. Good luck to your mom.

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