Breathlessness after ablation

[Joebel]

Has anyone else suffered breathlessness after having a pacemaker fitted then an ablation. I used to get slightly out of breath before having these but now I am so out of breath it’s leaving me exhausted. Is this normal? Does it take time for it all to settle down. I would love to hear your views on this.

[CDreamer]

Hi Joebel - I think we need a little more information. When was the PM implanted and what for? What sort of ablation - cryo/RF for AF or AV node ablation? And when were both done? Age?

I think it sometimes about managing expectations - what were yours?

I had 2 RF ablations for AF in 2013/2014 and I was certainly breathless during the healing period, but then it was still an improvement on before the ablations! I had a PM implanted in September last year and again, during the healing period and depending upon what I was doing quite breathless, until the PM 6 week check and it was regulated as for the 1st few weeks it is often limited so your heart rate doesn’t go high. What is your PM set at?

My experience was that the AF made me so symptomatic that I couldn’t do very much anyway and the PM has improved my QOL so much than I am gaining strength all the time as I can do a lot more but going up any incline, climbing stairs etc will always make me breathless.

I also have a neurologist-muscular condition which can make me breathless so my physio suggested I use a power breather to help develop and strengthen chest muscles and that helped enormously. That was about 6 months after the 2014 procedure but I do think if we haven’t been able to do much we lose muscle and like any other muscle, we need to exercise to regain.

Hope that helps.

[jossikins]

Hi, Joebel,

I had an AV node ablation about 4 years ago and became pacemaker dependent, the pacemaker having been implanted several months earlier. For the first month post procedure I was breathless and exhausted and it worried me very much. However, at the one month check, I was told that the pacemaker had been set on low in order to allow my heart a chance to heal properly. It had been set at 60, which meant that any demands on my heart above that setting exhausted me. It was adjusted to 130, with the lowest setting at 60, which made a huge improvement and has generally contributed to my sense of well-being ever since.