Anyone getting static hair :)

No

by Grateful Heart - 2019-05-27 11:35:00

I have straight fine hair too. 

I've experienced some strange things due to my device but static hair isn't one of them. 

Grateful Heart

Yes

by James Allan - 2019-05-27 14:46:32

The hair on my right arm is standing straight up. I heard this indicated a nerve problem. I haven't read or heard anything about it being a pacemaker anomoly? 

scary hair

by ROBO Pop - 2019-05-27 16:57:37

OMG YES!

This phenomenon is caused when they inadvertently reverse the polarity (positive and negative) of your device connections. Most commonly caused by inserting the device upside down. It's usually seen in Australia.

Try standing on your head to reset the polarity. Then again some conditioner on your hair might help.

Next up: how to treat pacemaker induced hemorrhoids

Grateful Heart

by Bethanne - 2019-05-27 18:00:31

Hi Grateful heart.  Not a serious matter about the hair but it did start the day after.  What are the other strange things? if you'd like to share?  Honestly although both my parents have/had pacemakers I had no idea all the side effects you could experience!!  B.

Scary hair

by AgentX86 - 2019-05-27 18:48:17

Well, now we know where ROBO's hair has been!  ;-)

I too have really fine silver hair (thanks mom) so tend to like it longer so it lays down by itself.  In the Winter, I kinda look like Einstein having a bad hair day.  My wife isn't so keen on my shaggy periods.  It's not the PM, more likely the weather or a change in your shampoo.

Autonomic nervous system dysfuntion

by Selwyn - 2019-05-28 14:12:16

You do not provide any medical reason for your pacemaker insertion.

Any increase in activity in your autonomic nervous system can affect the piloerector muscles ( hair muscles) associated with ’goose bumps’ ( see the drug addict ‘cold turkey’) . We do have some club members with vasovagal syncope.

Stress causes our autonomic nervous system to overload- sweat, loose bowels, increase heart rate, tension, pupil changes, eye lid retraction - very similar symptoms to an opiate user withdrawal. Could the stress of surgery affect your skin, piloerector muscles? Certainly, it is common knowledge that any sudden shock to the system will cause the hairs to erect. I would suggest that the normal reaction to having any surgery is stress, it follows that there may be some increased tone in your piloerector muscles.

This is backed up by animal studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22130486

Many thanks Selwyn

by Bethanne - 2019-05-28 16:55:46

Hello

Thanks for your fulsome reply!  My pacemaker is for a SA node Heart Block.  I knew that along with all the luckily temporary problems in the last few weeks (hiccups, indigestion, neck pain, arm pain, back pain) that my hair was acting strangely.  It's a minor thing but couldn't find anything much about it.  Grateful! BB 

Message and grateful thanks to ROBO POP

by Bethanne - 2019-05-28 17:07:01

Thanks Robo Pop

My haemaroids now have conditioner on them and it's working a treat.  Who knew?

Answers "'R" us

by Gotrhythm - 2019-05-28 18:04:21

Thank you Selwyn for balancing the smarty-pants among us with a rational response. Robo's answers are amusing and remarkably creative but it's possibly hard for a newbie to grasp all the tongue in cheek nuances.

Bethanne's question intrigued me since I have baby fine hair that would be greatly improved if it didn't lay so flat. But so far my pacemaker hasn't helped my hair at all.

Here's what I have to say: having a pacemaker is so un-ordinary that most people have zero prior experience or context with which to understand it. How it works, how it actually accomplishes what is does, is pretty mysterious to those with no electronic background.

It's easy for the uninitiated to attribute absolutely everything that happens post-pacemaker to the activity of the pacemaker. 

Personally, I think one of our jobs, here at TPC, is to help each other sort what changes in our bodies are due to the pacemaker and what aren't. No matter how silly or seemingly far-fatched.

Which symptoms spell danger, and which can be safely ignored. Which conditions are likely caused by the pacemaker and which probably aren't but do indicate the need to see someone other than a cardiologist.

I think this is important work and it's one of the reasons I check in with the club a few times a week. The other reason is that I regularly learn something new. Because of Bethanne's question I learned that although a pacemaker probably doesn't cause the hair to stand on end, enduring certain medical procedures when you get a pacemaker very well might.

Hair-raising

by atiras - 2019-05-31 12:47:14

My PM went in last autumn, and since the turn of the year I've been noticing that my baby fine hair has more body -- it doesn't cling to my skull like it used to; it seems to have more lift.

I've been putting it down to improved circulation to my scalp helping the hair  to grow more strongly. The first time I saw my GP after the PM went in he commented that in 15 years, he hadn't seen me with a natural pink colour -- I'd always been white as a ghost -- so I know my circulation has improved, or at least more oxygen is gettingt to places it wasn't getting before it.

I'm just treating it as a fring benefit :)