Resting Heart rate changed

Hi I had my Pacemaker fitted December 2019. And my pacemaker was set  not to  let my heart rate drop below 60. 

And when I was resting my heart rate  always stayed at  60.

And the last 3 weeks my resting heart  rate has been staying at  70 just checking if anyone knows why it's changed.

And I've started getting slight dizzy spells when I get up to fast. 

I have left bunndle and right Bundle branch block and slow heart beat 

I have Biotronik dual chamber pacemaker

41 years old .

Thanks 

Jason

2 Comments

Resting rate increase

by AgentX86 - 2020-05-09 15:17:00

Have you contacted your cardiologist/EP?  It's really difficult to guess without a lot more information (if then, even).  I'd guess that you had an arryhthmia going on, in addition to your Bradycardia and bundle branch blocks. Is your pulse regular?  Usually AF and AFL show as a higher rate than that but mine didn't get above 80bpm, give or take.

resting rate

by Tracey_E - 2020-05-11 11:23:00

Dizzy spells could be blood pressure, electrolytes, hydration, not necessarily heart rate. There is a test called a tilt test which checks what your heart rate and bp do on change of position. The pacer helps if your heart rate dips but it can't control blood pressure.

The pacer may be set to not let you go under 60, however with heart block, the pacer is usually playing follow the leader rather than setting the pace. The sinus node in our atria monitors oxygen in our blood and raises/lowers our rate accordingly. It tells the ventricles when to beat, that's what we feel as our pulse. With av block, the sinus node can work perfectly normally, the low pulse comes from the signal not getting from the atria to the ventricles. The pacer's job is to make sure the ventricles beat when the atria does. If the atria were to dip below 60, the pacer would fix that too, but for the most part your own heart is setting your heart rate, the pacer just completes the broken circuit to make sure the ventricles stay in sync. Long way of saying, it's not at all surprising your resting rate isn't 60 very often. 

How are you getting these numbers? Don't trust monitors, always count manually. And try not to get in the habit of counting all the time, the heart rate is constantly going up and down so watching it too closely will make us crazy. I only count if I feel bad, and then it's manually  not by machine. Pacers can confuse the machines and be inaccurate.

I would give your doctor a call. That's the only way to know for sure what's going on. Do you have a home monitor? If so, do a download and let them know to watch for it. Also, jot down the times the dizziness happened, see if they can correlate with anything going on with the pacer at the same time. 

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I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for pacemakers. I've had mine for 35+ years. I was fainting all of the time and had flat-lined also. I feel very blessed to live in this time of technology.