permanent PM reinstalled

Hi
I have underwent my battery replacement on my 8 year Biotronik Phylos DR today and replaced by new Biotronik Evia DR. During the procedure one of the assistants told me, having been questioned that my PM is working 100% and actually my heart is solely working through the PM, I could not verify this with a doctor,so I wonder if this statement is true?
Does the heart only work as long as the PM does and has it actually stopped beating by itself- sounds strange?
Thanks for info
Dave

1 Comments

underlying rate

by Tracey_E - 2013-04-22 05:04:01

I think the assistant was trying to sound smart and doesn't really understand how they work. We all have some type of underlying, intrinsic rate. It may not be enough to keep us feeling good, or keep us going for long without passing out, but something is there. To have no underlying rate would be very very rare and usually the result of an ablation, not nature. Even in those cases, after a few months some sort of rate usually develops.

My pm works 100% of the time, also, every beat I take is paced. My atria beats normally, the ventricles don't follow immediately so the pm kicks in with a signal that mimics what my heart should have done, the heart responds by contracting. If the pm was turned off, my ventricles would eventually get around to beating. It's not that they can't beat on their own, it's that it doesn't happen fast enough so the pm steps in. Sometimes when they check the pm (and every time when they've changed it out, I've had 4 now), they check to see what my underlying rate is. It's been anywhere from 20 to 60.

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