4 Months in

Hi Kris

by Lavender - 2024-09-29 13:21:27

I'm sorry that you're having this issue. Anxiety can make things worse. Hopefully you know not to use caffeine. If you're not satisfied that all the bases are being covered in your care, keep pushing for answers. If your pacemaker is working properly, then other investigations must be made. 

Anxiety can cause the symptoms you describe too. Have you tried meditating, massage, counseling?

I wonder about menopause? Night hot flashes can be a symptom. 

Go on YouTube and look up Michael Sealey. Choose one of his anti anxiety self meditation talks. They helped me greatly as I adjusted to my pacemaker. 
 

You are never alone. May you feel the peace that surpasses all human understanding. 

4 months in . . .

by Gemita - 2024-09-29 14:02:03

Kris, If it is any consolation, many of us experience higher heart rates when we first start pacing and it can be fairly normal.  My first post here I believe was about Tachycardia at night written in 2018, so not unlike you.

How can you go from pausing and needing a pacemaker to a racing heart, you ask?  It was the same for me and it was caused by a combination of the trauma of having pacemaker leads attached to my heart, a three-six month healing period when my heart was angry and getting used to being paced, and to my new medication which frequently needed adjusting.

You make some amusing statements. Atrial Fibrillation can occur at low, normal or high heart rates and it can certainly occur at 80 bpm.  If there is a cause for your racing heart, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to take a beta blocker or a medication that could help calm things down especially if you are still healing and are so symptomatic?

Your symptoms are real and I completely understand that you feel you are being brushed aside.  My doctors were only really concerned about extremely high heart rates, in the 170 - 200+ bpm territory and only when these were frequent/prolonged.  When I was getting heart rates in the 60-100 bpm range (a normal heart rate) they weren't really interested even though I was so symptomatic.  This was upsetting because I know during a rhythm disturbance like Atrial Fibrillation, even at a slow heart rate, this irregular rhythm can cause mayhem and make us feel truly miserable.

You are certainly not alone because you are going through what many of us have experienced in the early stages of pacing.  All I can say is that it will get better as you become more knowledgeable about your heart, your pacemaker and its settings and as you slowly come to terms with your heart condition, with the pacemaker and with any medication that you might need.  

Knowledge will bring you strength, strength to speak confidently to your doctors about your symptoms and to make sure that the pacemaker, its settings and any treatment that you need, will work well for you.  It does take time Kris, but you have the strength to get there

Pacemakers are complcated

by RickBT - 2024-09-29 21:32:26

Over February and March, I was experiencing some stabbing pains in the chest and tightness which worsen with any kind of exertion. I thought it was from the trauma the heart experienced and part of the recovery time. 

April 3, the pains continued. Consulted my cardiologist who recommended the pacemaker program of AAI-DDD be switched to DDD. The pacemaker clinic  changed the programm to DDD 50/130 and changed current medications. It was much better.

Pacemakers have many different settings. Talk to your cardiologist whether you need an adjustment. 

Be still, my heart

by Gotrhythm - 2024-10-02 14:29:59

Don't feel alone. For many of us how a pacemaker works and what it is actually doing is a great mystery. With the result that we can get very frustrated when the experts tell us things that make no sense. I can certainly remember feeling that way.

The truth is that a pacemaker is fundamentally a simple device that does exactly one thing. Anytime your heart isn't beating up to a certain set limit, it causes it to beat faster--up to that limit. The pacemaker will not raise your heart rate above that limit. But although it can speed up your heartrate, it cannot slow it down. Your heart can still go as fast as it wants to on its own.

So why do you need a pacemaker if your heart can beat so fast?

Here's where it gets a little more complicated. Saying that you are paced only in the ventricle is a clue. A heartbeat has two parts. The electricity for the contraction starts in the atrium and then travels to something called the AV node which transfers the electricity to the ventricle so it can contract. Sometimes, for some people, the AV node doesn't do its job and nothing gets through. That's called heart block. What is blocked is the signal to the ventricle.

I'm not a doctor. If you don't know if your diagnosis is heart block. That's something to ask your doctor.

The pacemaker is a workaround for this problem. The pacemaker tracks everytime the atrium contracts, and makes the ventricle contract. It matches every atrium contraction with a ventricle contraction. That keeps your heart in the neccessary rhythm. If your top chambers are going fast, the ventricles or lower chambers must go fast too or you will, at the least, feel terrible, and very likely pass out. Not a good thing.

Youtube is a great source for explanations and videos about how a pacemaker works and also what a pacemaker is doing to assist your heart in the different ways the electrical system of your heart can go wrong. The better you understand what your diagnosis means your heart is doing and what the pacemaker is doing to help, the more confidence you will feel in your pacemaker. And the better you will be be able to communicate with your care team.

As for why you are having a rapid heartrate, there are lots of causes, some of which aren't in the heart at all. Me, I'm paced 90% in the atrium. So theoretically my heart is incapable of speeding up on its own. But last night watching the debate, I could feel my heart pounding away! As others have mentioned, hormonal swings, sensitivity to certain foods, caffiene, etc can cause the heart to race.

Hope you feel better soon.