New Pacemaker install

In June, on a trip, I was hospitalized with AFib for first time. Since I had an cardioversion with one week good result, several episodes, more medication, then falls from low heart rate in 40s and 50s. So they thought a pacemaker was needed to correct low heart rate.

I had Pacemaker surgery last Friday. Pacer is fine but they seemed to dose me too much and had a very hard time getting awake. So they kept me and then did a lot of tests, like St. Judes pacer lady checking wire placement and pacer functions. I had chest pains and they did echo cardiogram and then placed me in CCU. The echo showed significant cardiomyopathy since the good echo in June. So did an angiogram with negative results. So either I have 'broken heart' syndrome or long term problems. Will do another echo in few weeks to see if its better.

Meanwhile, they put me on Amiodarone and I am home with good blood pressure and steady HR of 70.

I have pretty good balance now and feel much better as my heart rate is up from the 40s and low 50s to steady 70.
I am looking forward to following this group as I progress with my new pacer. I will get the exact model and add that to my file here.
Thanks, Joyce

3 Comments

Welcome

by jeanlancour - 2013-09-28 01:09:17

Always nice to have a new voice added to the forum. Looking forward to hearing how you are getting on. Hope new echo shows improvement. Jean

Welcome

by Grateful Heart - 2013-09-28 09:09:30

Glad you are feeling better already.

Any questions just ask away. Welcome to the club.

Grateful Heart

Voice Problems!

by joyzam - 2013-10-04 01:10:18

I saw the cardio a week after coming home from hospital and all vitals and pacer were fine. We had one big problem. My voice became lower and lower to where I could hardly talk. My husband looked up my meds for side effects and in addition to the Amiodarone I was put on Losartan and
Spironolactone. Spironolactone has side effect of lower voice. The cardio did not think this was a cause but he said to hold off the Srironolactone if we wanted to. Well after 3 days there has been on change so we are looking for other answers.
One thing that comes up in researching this is vocal cord paralysis after heart surgery. So we are now looking at this as a issue.
So my question is has anyone here experienced vocal cord paralysis?
And second question, what kind of doctor to we need to find for voice and vocal cord problems?

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I live an extremely normal life now and my device does NOT hinder me in any way.