Post PM Shortness of breath

Hello all,
Well its now just under 6 months since my PM saved my life. Many of you were kind enough to respond to my initial posts and for that I will be forever grateful. You all helped me so much. Thank you for that!! I am doing better, of that I have no doubt, but (isn't there always a "but"?), I am still having episodes of shortness of breath on exertion. For example, walking my dog and having a conversation while walking, climbing a flight or two of steps, sometimes just talking on the phone. It is uncomfortable and scary, at times. I cannot point to any one thing that causes it but I know I didn't have it before PM implant. Also, I still feel a hard pull or tug when my ventricles contract, again, not all the time, but a more than 30% of the time. Both of these things seem to revolve around the feeling of either skipped beats, arrythmia.or rapid heart rate. My PM is set from 60160 bpm. This was done by the Medtronic Rep during an interrogation at my last Cardio appt. The Cardio told ne to go now and live my life which I am trying to do. The symptoms of which I wrote are stopping me from getting any further. Everyone tells me its in my head but I can't agree. Do any of these symptoms mean anything to anybody? Has anyone experienced any of them?. PS: I am due for another interrogation on Monday 1/20/14. Thanks again for all your help.
Respectfully,
HK

3 Comments

you are not alone

by BillMFl - 2014-01-15 08:01:32

I too have A Medtronic and my hi/low settings are the same. And like you I have those symptoms of shortness of breath. They come and go and in my case are apparantly due to PVCs. There are lots of other possible causes so yours may be totally different. For me, I have concluded that i will probably always have them, that there is no easy solution, and will accept that they will be an inconvience that I will do my best to ignore. If you have been told that you have a very normal sinus rhythm and no evidence of underlying heart disease as I have been told, after wearing event monitors, then all I can suggest is to ask what your PM history shows at the next check, and ask about the setting that can boost your pulse rate when you make a quick transition from resting to being active.

short of breath

by manaman - 2014-01-16 05:01:08

When did you last have a heart cath?
.
Every time this has happened to me (same identical symptoms) it was a blockage and all four times I had to be stented!
Actually two of those times were within two months of PM placement.
Beside it doesn't hurt to have a cath every couple of years (my opinion).
Cecil

Unusual symptom - Pull or Tug...

by donr - 2014-01-16 09:01:41

You SHOULD not feel a pull or tug - the ventricles are not really attached to anything. They kinda float in the heart's sac , which is pretty much just floating in a sea of lung tissue. BUT that is not to say it is impossible. Some hosts do actually feel the contractions on occasion.

Let's address the rest of the symptoms you sense:

1) The range 60/160 is wider than they normally give a PM host - especially the upper limit. I just reviewed every post/comment you have recorded. Interesting - APPARENTLY you have the PM for complete heart block. Other than the circumstances under which you got it, that is a piece of cake for a PM to correct.

You cannot really "Skip a beat," the PM will not let you do that if it is working correctly. That is most likely the case, because PM's are extremely reliable - after all, it survived a car crash better than you did!

You could very well be having PVC's - you alluded to them. They give you the feeling of a skipped beat because of the unusual timing of the intervals involved in them. They are not at all unusual for PM hosts. MOF, "Normal " people have them & don't sense them at all, but put in a PM & you suddenly start sensing what was there all along. Find out at your download next week how many PVC's the PM says you had. Then forget them - they will NOT kill you. They are just an annoyance.

2) Have any of us experienced any of your symptoms? You make me laugh - I have had & still have a lot of your symptoms. PVC's out the Old Wazoo. SOB. Auto accident. the whole schmeer! You are NOT alone.

3) Ask your Cardio about SOB caused by a poorly adjusted AV delay. Huh? You say! What is that? It's the delay programmed into your PM that it waits following the start of a heart beat before it assumes that you will NOT have one naturally & it steps in w/ a pacing signal for the ventricles to contract. Too long or too short & you get SOB. W/ a complete heart block as you report, you would have a very high % of Ventricle pacing, so this could cause you problems of SOB.

4) You report having a Medtronic Adapta. It has (I think) a RR (Rate Response) function w/ two slopes to its capability of affecting your RR functioning. That could also cause your SOB or RAPID HR at times. If it is set too sensitively, you get rapid HR. Set too slow, you can get SOB because the HR does NOT keep up w/ demand.

Well, there are some potential subjects to discuss on Mon.

Mawah, NJ - Been there a couple times. Once for a college class reunion at the Sheraton Hotel & several times because I got lost in the maze of highways & their intersections/exits where the NY Thruway & US 17 meet.

Wish you the best, frustrating though it may be.

Don

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