3 weeks out

I am 43 yr old female, had a pm after finding out that I had a low heart rate during another surgery 8 weeks ago. I had shortest of breath several months ago ( respiratory infections). Other than that no health issues , no meds. Yesterday and today, I feel shorter of breath after walking, light head ach. I have an appointment with my cardio and the pm rep. I am very active, wondering if anyone has figured this out? I have read so post and I have not read many positive post. I feel very overwhelmed.

9 Comments

Similiar experience

by carolinagirl27 - 2014-10-22 10:10:52

Hi,
I am 41 and just had my first PM implanted about three weeks ago as well due to a bradycardia (HR 30's.)
I had a lot of shortness of breath, but mine was mostly because I had complications from the surgery. I ended up with pericarditis and pericardial effusion and was readmitted into the hospital for those issues plus my atrial lead detached and so surgery was repeated.

I went back to the my cardiologist (EP) and met with him and the Medtronic rep and my PM was pacing lower than I needed. They made some adjustments and turned it up. The rep explained to me because of my age and activitiy level (very active) it needed to be increased.
Since then, I do feel better and the shortness of breath has improved.

Hope your doctor and the rep are able to help you...I know what you mean about feeling overwhelmed. This happened very quickly to me too and its been an adjustment but I am thankful that this technology exsists for us that need PM/ICD.

Good luck!

Thanks

by Chelley - 2014-10-22 11:10:15

I am very thankful for so many gifts given to me and the pm is one of them. I miss tennis but more so I miss being involved with all my kids activities. My son has been a kidney transplant patient since he was 14 months old so I can't complain to my family nor do I want too. The surgery was scary for my kids and really scary for my husband. I just hope the PM works and I can return to the gym or tennis court. That was the way I dealt with stress, I am trying to not turn to food. Thanks for reading.

1 year out

by valley01 - 2014-10-23 07:10:00

I'm 44, female, and very active. My Biotronic 2 lead was implanted a year ago for bradycardia. I felt tired, weak, breathless, all of that but it was more from the after affects of surgery than the pacemaker itself. It's an "easy" surgery but it's still surgery and your body needs time to adjust and recover. Also, some respiratory infections can linger even if you don't have other symptoms. You might need your PM settings tweaked - ask your cardiologist when you see him or my cardiologist office is great about getting me in right away when I need an adjustment - I don't even have to see the cardiologist. But for each adjustment I've learned to give it time, I never once felt an immediate difference, it would happen over several days to several weeks even.

I think there are a lot of success stories on this site, we just don't post as much. I personally don't post much because I don't have any real issues. It only makes sense that there are more posts about people having problems than people that are not but there are a lot of us out there that got our PM's and went back to our normal lives after a recovery period. I do 2 hours of hard cardio and strength training at the gym 3 times a week and run 3 times a week plus a lot of walking but it took me about 6 months to get back to where I was pre-PM. You will be back to your normal, give it time.

positive posts

by Tracey_E - 2014-10-23 07:10:37

I'm so sorry you came and found a lot of negativity! There are plenty of positive post also, but the others can jump out us more. Unfortunately many people come here because they have a rare problem, not to gush about how good they feel. For every one person here with a complication, there are thousands out there getting on with their lives with no reason to find a group like this.

It's normal to have to tweak the settings a bit, esp for those who are young and active. They start off with a good guess, but often those settings are more appropriate for the average pm recipient who is considerably older and more sedentary than you so they may need to be changed. Just tell them when you don't feel right, don't live with it thinking this is as good as it's going to get.

Do you know what caused the low heart rate, like SSS or av block?

Once you heal, tennis should't be a problem! Or anything else you want to do except maybe full contact sports. This is often harder on the family than us. They will worry, it's what loved ones do, but as they see you get back to normal and feel good, they will move on. My kids are 16 and 17. I was paced before they were born but they have seen me through 3 replacement surgeries. Kids are resilient. My oldest does Crossfit with me. She leaves me in the dust on cardio days but I kick her butt on weight days :o) I volunteer at school and am their Girl Scout leader. We hike or ski every vacation, kayak and zipline whenever we can. No one, especially my kids, looks at me and sees a heart patient. People are going to worry and hover for a while but they will follow your lead. When they see you back to normal and feeling good (and there is EVERY reason to expect that), they will stop thinking about it. The day will come, probably sooner than you think, that you look back on this as just a bump in the road.

Btw

by Chelley - 2014-10-23 08:10:27

I still really don't know what caused my low heart rate. I have an av block that my doctor said does not always cause issues. I had a hysterectomy and woke to a doctor explaining that I may need a PM. After two weeks of testing and time to see if my rate would get above 60 it was determined that I was in stage 2 and with a rate of 38 most of the time, I needed a PM. After two doctors saying the same, I had a PM. I still can't believe that this happen but I am dealing with it the best I can. I had an asthma/ allergy issue months before that caused me to lower my workouts and activities . I still played tennis but not at the same level.

Just what I needed to read

by Chelley - 2014-10-23 08:10:50

Ladies,

I am truly excited to read your posts. I was worried crossfit was out of the question. I had stopped due to the "allergies/asthma ". Which was much more than that. About 9 months ago. My doctor told me that I may not be able to return fully to crossfit but I would be able to do some. For me crossfit was pushing myself every work out so I was a little worried about being about to push hard in a work out. Honestly after this week, I thought my PM was not helping and may not have been as needed as the doctor said since I felt the same after surgery. My pm rep was aware of my activities and said he raised the rate. I will ask tomorrow what for the details. It's a process, I felt like I hit 40 and my body has fallen apart. My family keeps saying they can't believe it, "your so healthy". Well I guess I am not as healthy as I thought. Anyway, ladies I needed to hear what your saying. I am looking forward to getting my work out on. Question: do either of you use the Polar heart rate watch? I have always used one and was wondering if it will interfere with my PM. If you use another one, please tell me which one?

pacing

by Tracey_E - 2014-10-23 10:10:55

Here is a great explanation of av block, pacing and how the heart beats
http://health.sjm.com/arrhythmia-answers/videos-and-animations
With av block, your heart is setting the pace but the signal isn't getting through to the ventricles. This is what I have also. It's the easiest of fixes. All the pm does is complete the broken circuit, make sure the ventricles beat when the atria does. The most common setting we need changed is the upper limit. The pm will only pace to that limit, which they often start at 120 or 130. As you know, that's not nearly enough for a workout! They can turn it up, most of them go up to 180.

I tried a Polar but it showed no rate. My pm interfered with the hrm, not the other way around. The monitor won't affect the pm so it's perfectly safe to try. I've never found one that worked for me so I go by how I feel. If I can talk but not sing, I keep going. If I can't talk, if I get too dizzy, I ease up. My coaches are used to me! I'm also on a beta blocker, it causes way more problems than the pm does. Really, the pm doesn't slow me down at all but the meds make me dizzy easily and affects my stamina so handstand push ups and burpees get interesting. We did a gazillion sprawls in the wod yesterday. I did them until the room started to spin, then grabbed a med ball and switched to russian twists. There's always a modification.

You ARE healthy!!! What you have is an electrical short circuit. Your heart is structurally normal and healthy. Lifestyle choices- poor diet and inactivity- cause plumbing problems. Electrical problems just happen. Nothing you did caused it, nothing you could have done differently could have prevented it. Some infections and some medications can cause it, so it's possible it's an indirect result of your bronchial infections. Or it could be a fluke. It's fixed now, so don't stress over what caused it.

If you ever want to chat, lemme know! I was born with av block and am on my 4th pacer.

Polar Heart Rate Monitor

by Grateful Heart - 2014-10-23 12:10:22


We're all different so try the Polar HR monitor since you have one. I have had no problems with mine.

From Boston Scientific: Keep the strap sensor just off center of your chest, on the opposite side from your device. It works fine for me and is pretty accurate.

You're only 3 weeks out....it takes some time and acceptance. You'll be ok.

Grateful Heart

Xfit

by yukon - 2014-10-26 03:10:02

The beauty about xfit is that you push yourself however you need to. It doesn't matter what level you are at, just that you are working within your personal limits. I do recognize that we all tend to push ourselves a bit harder when we are around other people, but, in some cases, we just have to be more diligent about staying within our ranges.

It has been hard for me to know what the 'normal' rate of recovery should be. My ICD was put in 4 days ago and the docs said I should wait 24-48 hours to fly back home. So, I expect that waiting 4 days to fly home would suffice but there was no way I had the strength or was comfortable enough to spend a day traveling. At this point I am going to take it day to day and if I can't make it back to work in a week, that is OK. Our bodies are all so different and deal with stress and recovery not according to books or manuals but to what they need. Give yourself time and be gentle with your body.

You know you're wired when...

Born to be Wired is your theme song.

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I am 100% pacemaker dependant and have been all my life. I try not to think about how a little metal box keeps me alive - it would drive me crazy. So I lead a very active life.