Settling in

My situation different but the same - I knew what was happening

by MartyP - 2019-01-29 11:06:16

Anxiety and Depression - For me it hit pretty hard. At the beginning, I napped a lot and felt just lousy. I would tell my wife my head was “fuzzy”. It was hard to feel “OK” with myself, particularly in the mornings. I went to my GP and after talking with him, we decided to start taking an anti-depressant, in my case the 50 mg Zoloft generic. I had been on it for about 3 weeks and it started to take off some of the the lows, there are some side effects, some can be troublesome, but make sure you ask your doctor about what you might experience.  I also started seeing a psychologist, Melvin is 82 and I love him!  I knew from past experiences they could help me through the next few weeks / months until I was fully OK with myself. But that wasn't enough so I also started to see a pychiatrist as well - Daniel was incredible - he upped the Zoloft to 200 and I stayed on it for about 5 months and then when I was "cured" weened off it for about 6 weeks and I've been fine since then (I will admit, once in a blue moon on a bad day I might take 1 Lorazapan) ------ So lesson learned --- if you are anxious and or depressed, see your psychologist and/or psychiatrist. Your body has changed, your life has changed, it will pass, but you may need some help until it does. If you need to talk with someone who has the experience and talked with others, seek out a psychologist who can help you - there is no shame, it’s usually just a chemical imbalance in your brain.  For me, the feeling was lousey, but it has passed and Sparky and I have a wonderful relationship !!

Anxiety happens

by Gotrhythm - 2019-01-30 16:09:42

Read Mattieclair's post. I think more cases of intractable anxiety are due to undiagnosed heart conditions than doctors guess. What if all these years your anxiety was really an effect of a heart condition?

Many people esperience increased anxiety in the first few months after getting a pacemaker, but the overwhelming majority find that the anxiety goes away within six months. Stay open to the possibility that as your heart gets used to being paced and you start feeling better than you've felt in a long time, your anxiety might also be much reduced. It does happen.

In the meantime, tranquilizers aren't a good answer. They are addictive, and the addiction is very hard to overcome--harder than cocaine. 

anxiety

by Uelrindru - 2019-02-04 10:00:53

Everyone needs different levels of care, when I got my crt-d in I was a wreck for a little while and random questions were knawing on me all the time. Thos site has helped a bunch but talking to a therapist is a good idea if you ha e a history of anxiety

perfectly normal

by dwelch - 2019-02-12 05:35:07

The anxiety related to the condition that brought you to a pacemaker.  And the anxiety of having a new pacemaker are all perfectly normal.  Very unlikely that you will dislogde the leads, not completely zero but not something to worry about.  You may or may not feel different now with a pacer, we are all a bit different there and have different medical conditions.  You will have the same issues the rest of us had, you will have times where you feel weird and think is this my pacer or something else, is this normal.  Its usualy the anxiety and not the device.  You can call the doc get an appointment, they can check the device, these days it stores a history, it can show you that nothing had happend at that time or on that day or week or month.  or if there was something it was X and X is not a big deal you will get those from time to time.

In my case my heart block made my heart big and beat hard and I felt every beat every day it was normal for me, didnt realize that until the pacer smoothed all that out and I had an empty feeling.  What helped me with my situation was I would take my pulse (always for a full minute no shortcuts) and sure enough every single time I was still alive...there has yet to be an exception, every time I check my heart is still working just fine.