Pacemaker

[Anomie]

Recently had a pacemaker fitted to help with low heart rate, also Atrial Fibrillation and waiting to see if I need medication to lower heart rate.

[Mollydex]

hi and welcome . I’ve had a pacemaker for 8 years now , and just wanted to say that life with it is so much better than without. Once it’s been there a little while you honestly do forget about it. There are lots of us in the cardiac forums with pacemakers so do feel free to chat.

[Anomie in reply to Mollydex]

Thank you for the reply, my pacemaker was fitted in November and generally I feel well although I still have paroxysmal AF and may need medication after they have monitered my heart. I had the pacemaker because I had fainted and felt very well a few times as heart rate was too low. It takes a bit of getting used to the fact that my heart is not as good as I thought.

[L8Again]

My wife had a pacemaker fitted 14 months ago for TLoC. She also has paroxysmal AF.

As well as providing the pacing team/cardiologists with data relating to upper and lower chamber pacing, a pacemaker is also capable of recording what my wife was told is the AF burden. My wife’s AF burden has increased since her pacemaker was fitted (the cardiologist that fitted the device said that this was likely to happen). To date, no one is suggesting the need for drug treatment other than the standard anti-coagulant.

[Anomie in reply to L8Again]

Thank you for the reply I have never heard of the AF burden before it was not mentioned to me. I had my pacemaker fitted because of the symptoms associated with low heart rate. At the first check up I was told that i was in AF about 20% of time over the last six weeks but that the heart rate did not go above 100 but have not heard anything since. The pacemaker was fitted in November last year so still early days

[L8Again in reply to Anomie]

Your 20% is what my wife’s pacing team called her AF burden. My wife’s AF is paroxysmal and her heart rate does not rise significantly. Her cardiologist said it was an unusual presentation that would not be recognised by most GPs even though the symptoms were detected by her Apple Watch and KardiaAlive 6Lead monitor. Despite what the Government would like us all to think, most clinicians do not trust the results from home monitoring devices. Ironically, our surgery is happy to accept home BP monitoring when it is well known that electronic sphygmomanometers can give false results when a patient is in AF.

[Anomie in reply to L8Again]

Thank you for that very interesting, my AF was discovered because I fainted on one occasion and then my eyesight was blurred on another occasion. My consultant advised a small inplantable device that monitored my heart rate and that was how the AF was discovered.