Has anyone heard of "looping'?

I am 4 months post 2nd PM. .I have felt FANTASTIC. My first PM was a fiasco that only lasted 3 years but this has been great.

For 40 years I've suffered with extreme panic disorder. So, on Tuesday when suddenly my heart started to race (not crazy fast, but fast) I thought that was what was happening. However, this time the rhythm was different.

I've been a wanna be doctor since I was a child. So, for 55+ years I've been a fanatical reader of medical books and journals (if ever you want to make yourself crazy I highly recommend this path). From what I could recall and Google (where would we be without Google?!) it seemed more like AFib to me than panic. I sent my doctor an email.

Wed it had calmed down but it wasn't completely gone. I heard nothing from my doctor. Ok. Thurs I was just exiting a very stressful meeting when my phone rang. It was my cardiologist's nurse---could I be there in an hour? YIKES! Anxiety took off like a rocket. But...I was there.

He interrogated my PM and said things could not have looked any better. NO incidents of any sort since the last implant. He did see, over the past 2 days a PM glitch. He said it wasn't harmful but it was causing a "loop". Well, he totally lost me and he is generally very good about explaining. I was totally lost because to my understanding the only thing a PM can do is to keep your heart above a pre-set level. It can't speed it up or keep it running faster if it opts to on it's own---well, at least that is what I know.

He said a simple setting change should fix it. He made 2 clicks and that was that.

Has anyone heard of "looping" or a scenario like this that can perhaps explain this to me in "English" vs medical-ease.  If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks!

5 Comments

PM type

by Cajun Girl - 2016-12-17 00:14:15

i had a Biotronik 2 lead pacemaker inserted a little over two months ago.  I had seen on this site people mentioning having a CLS turned off.  I went on Biotroniks website and they have a closed loop stimulator which sort of responds to your thoughts and will speed up your heart.  Mine did that to me during a simple walk.

i don't know about any other brands of pacemakers, but if you have a Biotroniks it's worth going on there website and seeing it.

Hope things get better for you! 

Thanks, Cajun Girl

by verne8 - 2016-12-17 01:13:17

That sounds fascinating. Thank you. I will check it out.

 

would you like an intelligent guess?

by donr - 2016-12-18 09:54:22

I see you live in wyoming.  Maybe your Cardio is a wannabe cowboy & uses a term for roping cattle to describe what is happening?  Nah, it's not THAT simple!

Try this for size - from an EE, long (14 yr) PM host:

Any device that has a GAIN (Volume) control can turn into an oscillator.  All it needs to do is be capable of generating a Positive feedback from its load to the device.  PMT (PM Mediated Tachycardia) is a condition in pacing that essentially does that.  Your PM's gain control is the setting that controls the voltage used to stimulate the heart into contracting.  Not only that, it is essentially a POsITIVE feedback device - increase the gain, increase the stimulation voltage, which increases the voltage returned to the PM. 

Now look at the Heart - it's an electronically controlled device, also.  Throw in positive feedback from AV node area to sA node area & you can turn your heart into an oscillator very easily.  Generally speaking, the heart is protyected from that by having a ONE wAY path from sA Node to AV Node.  Break down that protection & VOILA - an oscillator!  Tgat can easily be done by perhaps sending too strong a signal to cause the ventricles to contract.  That strong signal now flows BACKAD up the heart's conduction path & stimlates the sA node to cause a new beat to start too soon, causing a faster HR.  It does NOT have to go wild beating - just faster - PMT.

Now - full disclosure - I started this explanation& got to the para starting out "Now look at the heart..."  I needed clarification as to what caused PMT, so asked Dr. Google the following "PMT Pacemaker."  what came up is in the following link: 

"Also known as endless-loop tachycardia or pacemaker circus movement tachycardia. PMT is a re-entry tachycardia in which the pacemaker forms the antegrade pathway with retrograde conduction occurring via the AV node. Caused by retrograde p waves being sensed as native atrial activity with subsequent ventricular pacing.

Pacemaker Malfunction - Life in the Fast Lane ECG Library

lifeinthefastlane.com/ecg-library/pacemaker-malfunction/"

How 'bout them apples?  Horse Apples, that is!

Call your Cardio on Mon AM & ask him if that's what he meant.  Betcha it is!

Donr

WOW!

by verne8 - 2016-12-18 12:17:23

I guarantee that is what he meant because as soon as you wrote the phrase Pacemaker Mediated Tachycardia I recalled that is what he called it. I will have to do more research because---and please don't get me wrong, I AM grateful!!!---I'm still unbelievably confused. All I know is he changed some setting which I am just praying was for the good so my PM still does what it is supposed to do but that PM Mediated Tach doesn't return.

Off to figure out what oscillator does. Hey, I'm a woman...what can I say?  LOL!

Thank you SOOOOOO much!

 

Osillator - Feedback

by BillH - 2016-12-18 14:37:35

Just think of being in a place with a PA system and the turn the volumne up to high or move the mic to close to the speakers.

Then you get a howl or squealing sound. The results is an oscillator. And the feed back, or looping, of the sound from the speaker to the mic to the amplifier to the mic .... is the oscilation.

You know you're wired when...

You can hear your heartbeat in your cell phone.

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