Varying intensity of pulse

Just curious if anyone else has noticed if their pulse varies in how strong it feels?  My pulse varies so much in the forcefulness or intensity of it sometimes.  For example I will feel strong beats when checking my pulse then I can have some beats that I can barely feel.  Wide degree of variations...I have a crt pacemaker.  I guess it's stronger when I pace vs when I'm not pacing.  Just thought it was interesting and was wondering anyone else's experiences with this.


3 Comments

Hmmm

by Lavender - 2022-07-27 11:06:38

You made me think about this. My pulse comforts me. If I get anxious, I press my thumb into my wrist to feel the reassurance of my heartbeat. It reminds me that I am alive. Lol The important thing is that you HAVE a pulse!🤩

I did find this cool article on pulse strength, you have to copy and paste into your browser because links don't work here:

https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/vitalsign/chapter/what-pulse-qualities-are-assessed/

I have a CRT-P and my pulse seems steady and always the same intensity.  

Helpful article

by JaneJ - 2022-07-27 11:26:30

Interesting article!  Thanks!

My pulse gives me lots of useful information about my heart rate and rhythm

by Gemita - 2022-07-27 13:06:06

Hello Jane,

Yes, that was a very good link Lavender provided.  I have noticed such pulse variation from minute to minute, hour to hour sometimes and also between my neck pulse and wrist pulse.  My wrist pulse is too weak to manually check in the presence of an arrhythmia and I do better checking at my neck pulse to try to assess what heart rhythm I am in, how fast my heart is beating, whether it is slow, fast, normal pace, irregular or a regular rhythm.

An irregular arrhythmia like Atrial Fibrillation or ectopics beats (atrial or ventricular premature contractions) can really be difficult to assess.  Sometimes the heart beats pause, skip, race, then appear to stop, thump, vibrate, quiver and produce other strange sensations that it is really impossible to make any sense of the heart rhythm present.  No wonder our home monitors error sometimes in the presence of an arrhythmia.  But I always know when I am in blissful normal sinus rhythm.  My heart beat is strong and regular (evenly spaced beats) and this is when I feel at my very best.  Instead when I am in atrial fibrillation my chest quivers out of control sending my blood in all directions, except where it is most needed.  

With a different arrhythmia we can soon learn how to get to know the character of the arrhythmia just by feeling our pulse.  When I start to feel symptoms of dizziness, breathlessness, chest pain for example, I quickly feel my pulse to confirm the arrhythmia present.  A fast "irregular" beat is usually atrial fibrillation, a fast "regular" beat is usually atrial tachycardia.  

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