Irregular HR after PM, any ideas?

Hi, I have another question. I had a PM fitted 4 days ago and although I'm not feeling dizzy any more, when I walk upstairs or anything slightly exerting I get a very irregular heart rhythm.I had this before but not as bad. I think they are what the Cardiologist called ectopics but I'm getting them one after another which isn't at all comfortable and makes me feel weak and breathless. I don't know if this means the settings aren't right or if its because its just settling after the op. Because i noticed these while i was in the hospital they set the PM to 70 instead of 60 as he said this would improve them. How do you know if the settings are not right and has anyone else had this problem?

4 Comments

trial and error

by Tracey_E - 2013-05-06 06:05:32

The settings are an art, not a science! What works for one person doesn't work for another so they started you with what they thought was a good guess. If it doesn't feel right, ask to be seen and get them to adjust. They might want to wait a bit longer, though.

If it's going too fast up the stairs, it may be that the rate response needs adjusted, or possibly even turned off. If you have av block, you don't need rr and it can compete with what your heart wants to do on its own. RR senses movement and raises your hr for you. It has a lot of sensitivity settings and often takes fine tuning.
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The pm can't stop the ectopic beats, only try to pace you evenly so you don't notice them as much. It can't stop the heart from doing its own thing, it can only add beats.

Running to catch up

by Cath63 - 2013-05-06 07:05:09

Thanks for explaining this. I don't know if I have AV block and its taken ages for them to find out what the problem is. I have POTS and sometimes my heart goes into a bigemini rhythm for a few minutes at a time and can be on and off for a couple of hours. I think this might be the same as ectopics but I'm really not sure (its all so confusing!). The PM won't solve these problems but the reveal device showed that my HR also drops which is where I feel dizzy and and zone out. He said the lower chamber is trying to compensate to keep me from passing out so the PM will help this. I hope you can make sense of this and forgive me if I'm getting it wrong. I hope I'm able to give them the right information so they can try and make the right adjustments! What you say about RR is interesting. It feels like a huge strain to do anything when when it starts playing up.

Eptopic beats

by cans624 - 2013-05-06 07:05:24

I noticed I get the eptopic beats also about a month ago but I have had a pacemaker for 10.years now and they did adjust my pacer but I could still feel them so I saw my dr and she put me on a beta blocker called metoprolol cause I was having alot of them but not symptomatic with mine she said everyone gets them but some people just don't notice them I do think taking the beta blocker does help with them

Ectopic beats

by Cath63 - 2013-05-06 07:05:33

He put me on Ivabradine some months ago to try and reduce the HR and help with the BP which did help. It's possible I could try and increase the dose. Previous to the PM implant if I dropped or increased the dose then the problem got worse.

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