Recovering SA and pacemaker

Hello world of pacmakians. I had a Maze surgery in last June which unfortunately damaged my SA node. The surgeon who I have great respect for said that the SA node artery took a weird route which put it right in the path of one of the critical cut lines. Consequently I have since had a pacemaker to deal with Chronotopic incompetence. My SA node seems to function at resting levels but does not ramp up during exercise.

Okay now here's the puzzle. During the last month or so (8 months postop ) I have been getting weird spurts of heart activity that cant really be explained by the pacemaker. Sometimes my heart will accelerate too fast when I am just starting to exercise - then taper off to a more normal response. When I am resting sometimes my heart will race if I am lying on my right side. A few days ago I was taking my normal bike ride with includes some steep hills at high altitude I took my pulse at the top and it was over 200 easy! My PM has a max of 185.. Today on the same ride my heart rate was too low.

I had the PM optimized many times to find the right spot which was stable for months but now I am getting these spots of variability.

My question to any of you all out there is what does it feel like when your SA node recovers - as I heard that it often does after being traumatized?

My cardiologist seems to think that is what is going on though we have not had the opportunity to test that yet.

I'm 48 and chronic cyclist for years.

Thanks to all.
-Ethan Summers

3 Comments

right??

by Tracey_E - 2015-02-22 01:02:05

It sure would be handy if we could do adjustments on the fly! Next best thing is a dr that pays attention and doesn't write us off, that's priceless.

yes

by Tracey_E - 2015-02-22 09:02:01

Yes, paths can grow back after ablation. SA node isn't one spot, it's many spots. If you were over 200, you most definitely were not pacing, it was all you. It is possible to sometimes be too fast, other times be too slow. The pm will jump in and help when it's too slow but it can only watch if it's too fast.

I have been paced 20 years now. Several times we had the settings optimized beautifully, but then my heart changed and we had to tinker with it again. This last time we added a beta blocker to control the racing so I've been stable for the last 3 years (knock on wood).

Recovering SA node and pacemaker

by blep - 2015-02-22 09:02:33

Hey thanks for the comment! Yes that does corroborate what I have been feeling pretty closely. Its easy to forget that the heart like the brain or anything else ( except pacemakers ) are moving targets. Just wish mine had knobs on the front that I could tweak myself.

-Ethan

You know you're wired when...

You forecast electrical storms better than the weather network.

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