Doc says get a pacemaker

Well, I handed in my Zio Patch a few days ago (14 days of continuous heart monitoring) and met with my cardiologist yesterday. In the meantime I was feeling better and better. Bradycardia went away, HR now back to normal at 65 resting and up to 135 or higher when exercising. Still, he said I had twelve instances of 3rd degree heat block while wearing the monitor, when asleep at night, ranging up to 11 seconds of asystole. Most asystole episodes were in the first few days of the monitoring when I was feeling worse, but a couple in the last few days when I was feeling better.

He said it's "black and white" that I need a monitor. I asked, why did the bradycardia go away then? He said, the top part of my heart may have returned to firing away like normal but the bottom part gets delayed and on rare instances doesn't fire at all. As for type of pacemaker, he said I need a dual chamber one that most of the time will let the top part beat as normal and then trigger the bottom part to beat soon thereafter. Sometimes the top part may need assistance too.

OK, so I'm scheduled to get the pacemaker Nov 22nd. Now I want to learn more about pacemakers. I'll start reading around but any tips on how I can educate myself?
Thanks
Erik
(p.s. re-posting above as new topic from my original thread of 2 weeks ago)

6 Comments

welcome

by judyblue - 2013-11-15 11:11:44

Hi Erik:
Welcome to the site. I learned more about my pacemaker on this site than at my cardiologist's. In fact armed with the knowledge I got here, I fired away questions they did did not expect! So keep reading and posting. I too had my bradycardia go away and thought, "oh they will send me home from ICU with some electrolytes. I'm not getting a pacemaker". Shock! Needless to say, I was wrong. I only pace 5% of the time. Actually the first check up was 10%. But without the pm I would be afraid to drive or even walk down the stairs. My recovery has been slow, but I am trying to stay postive. The folks on this site help tremendously.
judy n.

You don't want what I had

by Theknotguy - 2013-11-16 08:11:13

I was going along OK. Had A-FIB sessions and was working closely with my cardiologist. Changed to a new drug called Fleconide (spelling). I had just completed 3 1/2 miles walking my son's dogs on a pet trail when I collapsed. Doctors called it an "undefined event." A combination of mild flu, dehydration, messed up electrolites, and Fleconide set up the situation.

When they found me on the trail I had a heart rate of 20. My heart stopped in the ambulance and they had to perform CPR. They busted a rib and collapsed a rib. They couldn't get my heart restarted in the ER so they had to do CPR all the way to the heart OR. I got a temporary pacemaker and then a permanent.

So if you can go in for a pacemaker full knowing what's going on it's a lot better than waking up six days later from a medically induced coma asking, "What happened."

Stay on the forum. It's a great help. You may want to schedule some time with a psychologist to get prepared for post-op depression. Therapy dogs were a great help to me too. Nothing like a cold nose and warm heart.

Hope everything goes well. Hang in there. Life gets better.

Theknotguy

welcome

by Tracey_E - 2013-11-16 08:11:44

Glad you are feeling better but 11 second pauses is a good reason to get it! You are making the right decision.

I love the animations on St Jude's website. They explain how the heart beat, the different conditions helped with a pm, how they do the surgery
http://health.sjm.com/arrhythmia-answers/videos-and-animations

If you have questions, don't be shy. Keep in mind as you read here that people often come here because they had a rare complication and are looking for answers. Complications are pretty rare overall, less than 1% of all pm surgeries, but it won't seem that way as you read the posts here. For every person here with a complication, there are hundreds, probably thousands, out there getting on with their lives.


good article with summary info

by erik - 2013-11-16 10:11:19

Thanks Tracy, I'l check out the St Jude's website. Here's a good simple article I came across about rhythm disorders with clear explanations of terminology:

http://www.arrhythmia.org/rhythms.html#heartrhythm

Good luck to you too on your quest to get back to normal. I read through some of your recent posts and it's clear you're a fighter!

what's normal?

by Tracey_E - 2013-11-16 12:11:37

Oh, I'll never be normal LOLOL But I feel terrific. I got my first pm in 1994. There have been a few bumps in the road but for the most part I've cruised along and it's had little impact on my life. Life's too short to let stuff get you down.

Arrhythmia.org is a great site. Another good one is theheart.org. It's primarily aimed at cardiologists so a lot of the articles go over my head pretty quickly but it's full of breaking news and the latest research.

It's good insurance

by Jonny - 2013-11-17 01:11:17

I had a similar situation. I had a 28 day holter following a couple of bad dizzy spells and almost nothing was picked up - and I was feeling good. Then I collapsed at the gym a few days later gashing my head - that needed stitches. While in the hospital my HR went down to 34 for 2 or 3 hours so they told me a PM would be fitted within 48 hours.
I was so pleased to have the PM implanted as after my collapse I was scared that I could have passed out whilst driving or up a ladder. I see my PM as a good insurance policy. It took me longer to get over the bang on the head than it did the PM implant. That all happened in August this year, now I'm back better than before and hardly ever think about my PM (except after a shower when it itches like crazy for a few minutes).

You know you're wired when...

You can shop longer than the Energizer Bunny.

Member Quotes

Today I explained everything to my doctor, he set my lower rate back to 80 and I felt an immediate improvement.