pacemaker monitoring and heart attack.

I know it might look like a silly question but can a pacemaker monitoring show if I had a heart attack ?

6 Comments

Probably not

by BillH - 2016-03-13 07:03:09

Exactly what details get recorded by the PM varies from model to model and what setup options are used.

But even in the best case it won't have near the details of a 12 lead EKG that are needed to look for diagnostic info.

While the PM might show some kind of disturbance it is no enough to be diagnostic.

don't think so

by Tracey_E - 2016-03-13 08:03:30

The pacer keeps track of beats and and sometimes it will catch irregular rhythms. A heart attack is when blood flow is cut off and part of the heart dies. One is electrical, the other is plumbing. It may catch something being off, but it can't diagnose a heart attack, as far as I know. When I had some other things going on and they wanted to rule out heart attack, they did blood tests every few hours checking enzymes. If you've had one in the past, they can sometimes detect the damage on an echo.

thanks!

by serah28 - 2016-03-13 09:03:14

Thanks for your replies..I am going to see my Doc on Tuesday and I am kind of obsessed with the idea that I had heart attack without knowing since I'm having pain in may heart and pacemaker area in the last few days..

ER

by Tracey_E - 2016-03-13 09:03:22

If you have even the slightest suspicion you've had/are having a heart attack, you need to go to the ER!!!!! Never, ever take chances.

Yes & no...

by donr - 2016-03-15 04:03:51

...but let me hypothesize a bit.

Case 1: a "silent" infarction. I had an ECG run two weeks ago that came out of the machine w/ the COMPUTER generated comment "septal Infarct." Which means that I had a silent attack that affected the septum, the wall separating between the two halves of the heart. It did NOT say WHEN!

I went back to the MD who did the test the next day after reading about ECG recording & recognizing a septal infarct & she re-ran the ECG - AFTER reading the manual on her new Welch-Allen machine & it came out normal! The difference was that the second trace was made w/ the button pushed that said "PM Present."

So - there was something about the internal workings of my PM that would allow it to take data implying a PLUMBING failure.

Now there are all sorts of plumbing failures that constitute a "Heart Attack," & I'm not savvy on how all of them affect the ELECTRICAL functioning of the heart. Since the two functions - PLUMBING & ELECTRICAL are presumed among those of us who are amateurs.

For Case 2, let's assume that the attack is not instantly fatal, & the patient survives.

My first guess is that the PM would record a burst of extremely high rate heart beats as fear strikes the victim, followed by some confusing heart rate patterns as the muscles of the heart are deprived of O2. Eventually, the electrical system is affected as the entire body is deprived of O2. There are entire manuals devoted to interpreting ECG traces for hearts that have suffered an attack. Granted the "TWO LEAD" ECG from the PM will not have all the detail of a 12 lead machine, but there should be some affect on how the PM functions & records & categorizes data.

Case 3: A person suffers a sudden, massive attack, passes out instantly & collapses to the floor or ground "Dead." All electrical activity of the body does not cease immediately, so there should be some indication in the PM records of what happened. Probably a short burst of rapid HR (fear), followed by a decay to normal rates as the adrenaline level decreases due to unconsciousness, including some confusion as the heart comes to a complete stop & the two nodes quit. Then, just like the Energizer Bunny, the PM senses NOTHING from either node & starts trying to pace both chambers - unsuccessfully, of course, because the muscle is now dead tissue.

How dead, I haven't a clue because they can take a heart from a just dead person, ice it down, & take it elsewhere for a transplant & have it function correctly in its new host.

If someone can expound on my hypothesis or debunk it. I'd be pleased to hear of a better explanation.

Donr


Thanks

by serah28 - 2016-03-15 05:03:21

Thanks a lot for your appreciated opinions..

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