99.9% pacing-- interrogation -escape rhthym

I have been virtually 100% paced for most of my pace maker years - now going on 9 years.  I had my 6 month interrogation today and asked the Medtronic tech what my escape rythym is   . She said they can only let the heart rate go down to 30 bpm on the interrogation and  thats where  mine was.   Now I am wondering, without the pace maker, would my heart beat at all or would there be a survival mode.  I don't have any heart damage and elected to get the pace maker  due to marginal bradycardia and left bundle branch block.  Any comments???

                              Thanks,

                               Rodger

1 Comments

escape rhythm

by Tracey_E - 2017-03-03 11:13:04

They won't let the pacer off very long before they turn it back on. Odds are your heart would kick in fairly quickly if it was left off longer, but that's not a chance a tech in the office is going to take. It's extremely rare to not have any intrinsic rate, usually that's after only someone has had ablations. Most likely if they left it off for a few minutes, your heart would do exactly what it did before you got the pacer. My own rate has been anywhere from 20 to 60 when they check, I pace every beat. They usually only do that before replacements so they know if they need temporary pacing or not during the surgery.

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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.