Fluttering feeling in lower chest

flutters and other oddities

by knb123 - 2015-08-01 08:08:24

Hi Gram211, welcome to the club and congratulations on your PM. Like you, I have a dual-lead St. Jude Medical PM; it was implanted in March 2015.

For a couple of months after the procedure, were I to attempt to sleep on my right side, maybe once a week I would feel a sharp "tap." It was as if someone took an index finger and tapped me smartly once in the middle of my sternum. It didn't hurt, but it would come out of nowhere, catch me by surprise as I was falling asleep, and the thought of something "going on in there" was just intrinsically icky, if you know what I mean. None of the docs or their nurses had a clue what that was all about. My daughter (who is also a doc) speculated that it was my sternum shifting slightly to accommodate my sleeping position.

Similarly, on occasion in those early days I felt a sensation of fluttering around my diaphragm. I thought it was a bit like palpitations, but since it passed rather quickly (and hasn't come back) I attributed it to the period of adjustment that is part of getting a PM.

I keep a medical journal and record those oddities and bring them to my office visits. That way, you can chart the data and give your doctor a relatively accurate picture of how long/how often you experience something. My doctors have told me they appreciate my recordkeeping and said they wish more patients would take a proactive position. Suggest you try tracking your symptoms; you may be surprised at how quickly things settle down (months from now, you may even have forgotten about your fluttering).