I'm Not Making It Up Honest :-s

I have a log burning stove and every now and again the glass in the door needs a good hard scrubbing to clean it. Because the door hinge is mounted on the right I can only scrub it using my left arm. However I've noticed that since my PM implant, whenever I scrub the glass hard I can feel my heart beating uncomfortably fast and a slight breathless sensation which lasts for several minutes after stopping. I workout extensively 4 times a week and so I'm pretty fit and I don't feel that the nominal effort needed to scrub the glass really warrants the increased heart rate / breathless sensation. It happens every time within 20 seconds or so of starting to clean the glass and I only noticed it since receiving my PM which is configured to click in when my resting rate drops below 60 bmp. Any ideas anyone?

4 Comments

Rate response

by Tracey_E - 2015-03-30 06:03:09

Your pm is set to kick in when you go too low, it sounds like it's also set to help out when it thinks you are exercising and your rate doesn't go up enough on its own. That's called rate response and it senses physical movement, probably triggered by your arm movement when you scrub. They can adjust the sensitivity, but if you are able to work out and feel good I probably wouldn't mess with it. Can you scrub with the other arm?

Hi Shaun.......

by Tattoo Man - 2015-03-30 07:03:28


........as the seasoned members of PM Club will ,unanimously agree,..I am the most serious and caring of any member here..always ready to accept the manifold issues that are put forward to this fine community,...awaiting their collective wisdom...

But..

Your posting is going to be very interesting to track...

Await the cutting wit of Mr IAN MC.....he lives but a logs throw from your stove ...and beware he does not share my careful approach...

I also have a log stove..and the only time that it affects my heart..and indeed..my very sanity is when I forget to move that lever-thing when I start it up and the room is full of back-draught smoke...invariably but minutes before the arrival of Royalty for chicken and chips on a Friday night...shame is not the word for it....

To welcome lovely people to our house that smells like an Arbroth fish smoking factory does little to what is , our, already, shattered social standing

If your choice, Shaun, is to choose between a grubby stove and being a social pariah..then,..be it on your own head.

Grubby stove for me any time.

Tattoo Man...up at the cheap end near Newark

Read Your Bio

by Artist - 2015-03-30 07:03:37

I did a little reading and found out you are married. My recommendation is to just put cleaning the glass on your "honey do" list and hand it to your wife sealed with a kiss.

Many thanks for your responses

by Shaun - 2015-03-31 07:03:37

My main reason for asking was out of curiosity and to gauge the response of the Electrophysiologist at my next pacemaker clinic in May (based on your responses, I think I need to prepare myself for a bit of teasing from her).

For a month or so after receiving the pacemaker I was not allowed to drive due to the syncope episodes which immediately preceded the implant. I therefore became accustomed to being driven everywhere by my wife. Initially though every time my wife drove along a particularly bumpy stretch of road near where we live I could feel my heart rate increasing and so I assumed it was the rate response on my pacemaker. After several weeks of this happening I decided to look up the settings on my Medtronic ADDR01 pacemaker and found that the pacing mode had been set to DDD, from which I concluded firstly that the rate response is not set and secondly that my wife's driving makes me nervous. ;-)

You know you're wired when...

You get your device tuned-up for hot dates.

Member Quotes

I had a pacemaker when I was 11. I never once thought I wasn't a 'normal kid' nor was I ever treated differently because of it. I could do everything all my friends were doing; I just happened to have a battery attached to my heart to help it work.