I am new here

I have had pacemaker now for 3 years. When first implanted it paced me approx 55 percent of the time. Yesterday I had my three month check and now it is at 70 percent and they tell me I am fine nothing to worry about. Apparently I had a 45 second episode or racing heart just after my last check. I saw the my cardiologist and he says I am fine and these things happen and unless they get much much worse I will be alive til I am 100......now is he pacifying me. I am very in shape, I have my masters in clinical nutrition, I eat extremely healthy and my cholestoral is 163 and the rest of my numbers are just as good. So why pray tell did this happen......Doctor says I am strong and go home and live life.......Now do I believe him or has anyone else here heard this and what was your results and feelings.........thanks for any responses I get.........Bill

4 Comments

Live a good life

by gleesue - 2013-02-15 04:02:23

I've had 5 heart procedures including the Maze procedure in 1991 when it was new. I also exercise at least 5 days a week. I try to eat as right as I can, but have a little problem with potato chips and also like my whiskey and my wine.

I asked my doc at the Cleveland Clinic if all these heart procedures would affect my longevity. He said no! If you take care of yourself and keep exercising you'll live till a ripe old age. Right now I'm only pacing at about 30%-40% of the time, but he said over the years you can plan on the fact that you will be pacing more.

The number one thing is to take care of your body and your mind, forget about the machine that helps keep you going and just relax and have a good life.

Jerry

Don't worry be happy!

by bowlrbob - 2013-02-15 08:02:07

Sounds like a good line from a song. Tell me what can you really do about it anyway. If you are walking on the grass instead of under the grass it's a good day. So do what the Dr. say's and enjoy what time you have left. worrying about it won't change anything. My wife and I have a motto.
" DO IT NOW OR FOREVER WISH YOU HAD " Bowlrbob

why

by Tracey_E - 2013-02-15 10:02:03

First of all, pm's fix electrical problems. Exercise keeps our heart muscle strong, eating well keeps our arteries clear. None of this has any effect on the electrical system of the heart. Taking care of ourselves is important but unrelated to pacing most of the time. Different things can cause changes in how much we pace. Changes in the settings may cause it to kick in more frequently. If we are more active, we can pace more. Or in my case occasionally, if I exercise a lot I pace a little less because for some reason my heart occasionally kicks in on its own during an intense workout (I usually pace 99.9% so brief episodes of beating on my own jump out on the report). Sometimes with age our hearts slow down so we pace more.

There is no one number that's considered good or bad. What matters is how we feel, if we feel good then we are pacing the right amount. As long as you can stay active and do whatever you want, then trust your doctor- go home and live your life and don't worry about it. :)

Aside from how you feel, they can do an echo to check ejection fraction, a measure of how efficiently the heart beats. Some drs do them yearly or every other year, some only do it when there are symptoms. My dr is conservative that way. He knows I eat well and am very active, so he only does basic blood work yearly, nothing else unless it looks like something is going on.

WELCOM TO THE PM CLUB

by SMITTY - 2013-02-15 12:02:46


To Bill Smith from Bob Smith: (We are not related)

Since I'm a "little" goofy from some medication I'm taking for a couple of weeks I'll try to talk about your comments and questions.

Don't be concerned about the percent your PM is working. When I got mine in 2000 it was pacing about 1 to 3%. Today it is pacing 95%+. But that is what the PM is there for, to fill in when your hearts natural PM doesn't send an electrical impulse on schedule. The increased pacing % has very little impact on the life of its battery. My first one lasted 9 years.

The cardio gave you the answer why ("these things happen") there are changes in your heart function. I have come to believe that one of the worst things about having a PM is that it looks at and records every minute of our heart function so that we can be told about it at checkup time. Very, very seldom can anything be done about what the PM tells us, other than usually make small changes in the PM settings. In the meantime we know of these changes in our heart function and we are prone to worry about them, unless you are like me. In my case I just think so be it, or as one of my favorite singers says in one of his songs "Nothing I can do about it now".

Seriously, since I got my PM the more I read about the heart, the more I realize what an amazing organ it is and how hard it is to stop one. For example, did you know our heart has a backup electrical impulse generating site located in the ventricle that will step in to keep us going if the main one in the atrium falls down on the job.

Your "Doctor says I am strong and go home and live life". Take the Drs word and do just that. Between your hearts natural PM and your manmade job you are in good hands.

Good luck,

Smitty

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