feeling pre pacemaker symtoms

Hi again. I posted a few days ago and since then have an update. I had a heart halter monitor on me a week ago and was told yesterday that they found something on the read out. What I found out is that my pacemaker wasn't quite doing it's job as far as connecting my heart to work together. I had third degree electrical blockage to start with and the pacer was to make the upper chambers work with the bottom chambers. Well yesterday I saw that my heart is not yet working together and in fact the bottom chamber is pacing first before my upper chambers. They increased my pacemaker to 80 bpm ( I was at 50) and they have me trying a low dose of a beta blocker to slow the lower chamber down. They said this is a try. Not sure if this is the answer, but at least it's something. I am on no other meds.
I would tell others to have them check out your heart further with a 24 hour heart monitor if you might me having the issues I have been having because they looked at my pacer several times only to say it's working how it is supposed to and I had my lungs looked at also, only to have the Doctors say I don't know why you are dizzy and fatigued and can't run. This monitor showed that the pacer wasn't doing it's job.

1 Comments

I'd put it differently...

by golden_snitch - 2013-11-07 10:11:06

Hi!

The pacer is doing it's job. That they increased your lower rate setting and put you on betablockers clearly shows that there is something else going on that interferes with what the pacer is doing. I guess that it's a retrograde VA-conduction and/or a junctional rhythm. Both, the settings change and the drug, are supposed to suppress this problem. You don't slow a paced ventricle down with a betablocker, you can only slow a ventricular rhythm down with this.

I have had exactly the same measures taken due to accelerated junctional rhythm + retrograde conduction. Something at my AV-junction or upper parts of my ventricles was firing faster than the pacemaker, and due to a pathway in my AV-node that was able to conduct an impulse backwards - from the ventricles to the atria - either my ventricles were beating first or my atria and ventricles were beating at the same time.

This is not an issue that shows that the pacemaker is not doing it's job right; the pacemaker is helpless against this accelerated rhythm and the VA-conduction. It's called a "pseudo pacemaker syndrome", just that the "pacemaker" in this case is not the artificial one that you got, but as I said an accelerated rhythm coming from the AV-node or ventricles. This VA-conduction can even happen in patients who otherwise have a complete heart block.

Hope you'll feel much better soon!

Inga

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