Scared Today

• by keylymepie
• 2014-10-14 07:10:49
• Checkups & Settings
• 1449 views
• 1 comments

I got my pacemaker 3 weeks ago and at that time was told that I would never pace from the ventricle unless I was in heart block or had a heart pause.

My pacemaker was for bradycardia, to prevent sudden drops in heart rate, one heart pause, and hypotensive fainting (the Biotronik also helps spike heart rate in response to changes in cardiac output/low BP).

My maximum is 155 and my minimum is 80. Today as I was walking I was paced at 155 consistently. Eventually I got over 170 intrinsically and then I had SEVERE painful palpitations which dropped me to the ground. It felt like when they tested the ventricular lead at max voltage during the surgery (I was not sedated). I went back to 155 for a while and it happened again 10 minutes later.

What do you think caused this? I know it was ventricular pacing because I felt and subsequently confirmed by ECG some milder episodes of a similar feeling that happened last week. Again, ventricular pacing is unexpected for me since they predicted 0% and for it only to kick in during my apparently rare heart pauses.

I think that my heart rate suddenly dropped during exercise (which has happened before), the pacemaker sensed it as a pause and kicked in strongly to get my heart beating again. Any other ideas?? I didn't have my handheld device for my heart monitor with me so I couldn't flag it. Now I may never know but I'm afraid to run! It was very scary. Equivalent to when my heart stopped.