Hello!

I am still new to having a pacemaker, it's my first one and its been less than a year. Still trying to get over the self consious part. Does anyone else feel when it hits? Its like having a pro boxer thump you in the chest! Does it ever go away?

I read in a chat that someone was asking about still being a firefighter. Please don't give up on your dreams, if it makes you happy that is what you should do regardless of that electronics in you! I am going to college for Criminal Justice, if I can you can!

3 Comments

Feeling Pacemaker

by SMITTY - 2008-03-08 01:03:56

Hello Mea,

On your questions - "Does anyone else feel when it hits? Its like having a pro boxer thump you in the chest!" I'm sure others do have this felling but you and they shouldn't. A pacemaker is supposed to replace an electrical impulse to make your heart beat that is no longer being supplied by your heart's natural pacemaker. If you did not routinely feel your heart beat before you got your pacemaker, then in my opinion the settings on it are not correct for you. I have felt mine, but it was when they turned the voltage or power on the thing much higher than necessary during a checkup and I knew what was going on then. If this is a bother you demand that the doctor fine tune some settings or if they can't do it send you to someone that can. A pacemaker should be our silent and unnoticeable helper, or something is wrong.

Now there is no reason for you to accept my uneducated guessing, so if you want proof, I would suggest that you contact the manufacturer and ask them if you should be feeling what you describe.

Good luck,

Smitty

thump

by thomast - 2008-03-08 02:03:17

You did not say, do you also have an ICD? When that hits you its like touching the sparkplug on a lawnmower. I have been zapped twice and that is the way I would describe it.

Thank you

by Mea1225 - 2008-04-15 05:04:16

Smitty,
I have talked to the lab people about it and they are helpless. They blame it on my youth and slight build, in other words they have no idea what they are doing and they can't fix it so they will blame the first thing they can come up with. Thank you for your input though and in response I agree with you 100%.

Thanks,
Mea
----------------
Thomast,

All the doctors told me is that it is a dual chamber pacemaker, they don't even seem to know why my scare is swelling on one end and why my leads keep shifting. It is like touching the plugs on a lawnmower sometimes, then therer are the really fun times when it is like touching the plugs on a 1200cc harley. If the problems I was having before weren't killing my I would go back to life before a pacemaker. I get hit almost every day even with the medication. Sorry, I am feeling sorry for myself and have no right. Hopefully yours would shock you like that anymore!

Mea

You know you're wired when...

Your favorite poem is “Ode to a Cardiac Node”.

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