new at this PM

i just had a pacemaker at age 60, i am very healthy, even with the second degree block had not much symptoms. this was found coincidentally at the time of a routine colonoscopy, when they put me in the monotor for the colonoscopy sedation they noted the skipping beats and sent me to the cardilogist. within a week i had the pm, no time to adjust. the surgery did not hurt I DEMANDED general anesthesia, the docs were upset at me but i was afraid of the pain. now reading some of the comments here i am glad i did.
i feel very weird, some palpitations and very scare that i have to live my life depending on a battery. my family history is unremarkable and the youngest of my relatives to die was 88 years old, i really thought i will follow their steps and now i have my doubts. i had so many plans for things i still wanted to do before i die. what bothers me the most is that i am in coumadin, this is rat poisoning, i'm afraid to fall and have abrain hemorrhage, i love cruises and now afraid to have problems in a cruise and have a foreign doc with probably no knowledge of pm takenkg care of me.
will i ever be able to live a normal life? will i have to be on coumadin all my life?? is this horrible chest pain ever going to go away??(surgery was 3 days ago. i was hoping to go back to work in two days and i don't think the pain will let me do it but i may have to tought it up because i am the only financial support in my family.
can someone help me withere experiences?
celia

10 Comments

Don't worry

by twilkie - 2010-02-07 01:02:22

Hi Celia,
Just another note to let you know your going to be fine. I am 46 and had my PM implanted a year ago. It hurt pretty bad for about 2 weeks, then it gradually all went back to normal. So it is normal that it hurts right now, and it's scary at first. I felt the same way back then, and as everyone else said, not only does your body need to adjust, so does your mind. Just be good to yourself and your body, let yourself heal, and gradually get back into the swing of things. You may find that you are even better now than you were before. Take care and let us know how you are doing:)

thanks for your kindness

by celia - 2010-02-07 01:02:39

i don't have any words to thank all of you for your support. i was really really down and just by reading you posst i am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. your words will keep me going and living a more meaninful life, enjoying it at the fullest. and who knows maybe i get to live to 100.
thanks God for you guys taking care of newbis like me. i hope, when i get back to normal to share my experiences with some scary cats like me.
celia

100th Birthday

by donb - 2010-02-07 03:02:37

Hi again Celia, You've got to watch your life expectancy as my mother had her 100th and lived very comfortable to 37 days shy of 101. She fell asleep permanently during her normal after breakfast snooze. And to add this, it will uplift lots of us, she was an Atrial-Fib patient for 30 years prior taking only BP medication and Lasix. donb

Welcome

by wenditt - 2010-02-07 10:02:06

It takes time to physically adjust to having a pacemaker. It will take your head some time to wrap around the idea, it will take some time for your brain to trust it, it will take some time for your body to heal and adjust as well. Allow yourself that time. For some it happens fast....they accept it and move on. For others it takes a little bit longer. Allow yourself the time to go one step at a time.

Teach each day as it comes. You are thinking about everything all at once. I can empathize as I tend to do the same thing but please learn from my mistake! It will only make you overwhelmed, more scared and more sad.

There are people on this site who doing everything they did before they got their pacemakers. They don't let it hold them back from doing anything except maybe kickboxing! LOL

You will get your life back....they promised me I would....and they were right. Slowly but surely I am too. I am 33 and got my PM 5 months ago. Physically I do everything I did before. And you will too!

You also said your diagnosis was second degree heart block. That is not fatal. The worst that was going to happen to you without your pacemaker was light headedness, dizziness etc. Your heart was fine then...your heart is fine now. In fact you are safer now with the PM because now you won't dizzy etc. If you never had symptoms before then even the luckier for you.

Whatever the condition your heart was in before...it is the same now...but safer. So if you planned on living to be 100 before....plan on doing the same thing now!

As for your finances, look into the Federal Medical Leave Act. You are entitled to weeks off with a % of pay if you are concerned. :-)
Good luck,
Wendy

newness

by cfritza - 2010-02-07 10:02:25

Hi Ceila,

I have had those weird palpatations and thoughts about what my future will bring and if I would live until old age. The first several weeks I felt were the hardest cuz were just starting to deal with it all. But as time has gone on things DO get better. We find we haven't died we get use to the weird feelings(they even get better) and the pain does get less.

I realized that none of us know how long we will live so we should LIVE while were alive and fear and worry just take away from living. I have to tell myself this ALL the time :-).

There are people on this site who are proof that we can live long healthy happy lives with a PM and that gives me much encouragement when I read their posts. I hope this site will help you as it has so many of us. Thinking of you and wishing you peace with it all. Carol

Life Rewind

by donb - 2010-02-07 11:02:06

Hi Celia, Your posted message sounds like my life in rewind, as Carol & Wendy pretty much said it except you asked for living support and I'll give you mine.

Your experience sounds exactly as mine, age 60 and 2nd degree electrical heart block. Wow, pacemaker ??? Kinda puts a person's mind into a spin, literally (I'm a pilot) and I had lots of losses in my mind at the time. Well, I am now age 78 and have had a full, very active life. As a matter of fact so full and active that I've had to have body parts repaired, like working so hard that I needed 2 back surgeries, shoulder rotator cuff and lots of minor injuries.

I can still drive 900 miles a day traveling and my PM just keeps doing the Energyzer bunny thing. AND, the biggie is that I still fly my airplane but I have to have another legal right seat pilot with me.

Now, I also want you to realize that most members in this support group are people who really need uplifting. For each one of us there are tons of PM people that go on with their life living with their new lease and enjoying every minute. So, Enjoy, have fun like our member Electric Frank!! donb

Looking up

by paulb - 2010-02-07 11:02:54

It is so great to hear positive and uplifting stories about people with PM living normal lives. It is great to look at the PM as making your life better and you stronger and safer. I too was looking at it at a scary thing; like your dependent on some battery and device for life. Its really not like that though cause they dont turn your sinus node off or any other part of your heart it only pulses when you need one. Besides that it only sits there hanging out with ya...LOL. I hope your recovery goes well--keep us posted...I get mine wednesday.

comforting answers

by DanaT - 2010-02-07 12:02:57

Wow. What comforting answers. You guys answered all my inner questions as well. I am due to get my pm on the 25th. Things keep running through my head. I'm beginning to get preoccupied by my thoughts. I said it once, and I'll say it again, thank God for this site and the wonderfully caring people on here. I think I will print out your answers and just read them when I need a boost of reassurance. Believe it or not, I had the same question about cruises, lol. Good luck to you Celia. Please keep us informed on how your doing.

New Pacemaker

by SMITTY - 2010-02-07 12:02:59

Hello Celia,


Welcome to the Pacemaker Club.

I'm sorry your getting a pacemaker has been such an unpleasant experience so far. Believe me, things do get better. But before I go further, let me tell you a smidgen about me, not that it will help anything, except you can see I'm one of many on this site that has been through the age 60 experience. I got my pacemaker in 2000 at age 71. The battery on that one gave out about 4 months ago and I got a new pacemaker.

Although I didn't have a "general" for either of my PM surgeries and they didn't hurt. You did the right thing by asking for a general if that is what made you comfortable. if I hadn't been convinced I didn't need anymore than the local, I would have asked for a "general"

I'm sure you were surprised to learn you needed a PM. While 2nd degree block usually will not kill a person, it can cause our body to do things that will kill us. For example passing our can occur from 2nd degree block and if you happen to be driving when that happened, well I'm sure you get the picture. As for having to live your life depending on a battery, you are not in that situation with 2nd degree block. The probability of that battery dying, or that pacemaker quitting is somewhere between zero and none, That is not to say none have ever failed but it is extremely rare. Second, even if your PM did quit your heart would revert to doing what it was doing before you got that PM. When they implanted it they didn't disconnect anything in your heart, they just added something to assist your heart in case the heart's natural pacemaker took to long a rest sometimes. You see that new pacemaker just sits there monitoring your heart rhythm and steps in to help out only when it sees your heart could use a little boost.

As for your pain, you say it has been three days. With both of mine it took two to three weeks before I declared myself pain-free, but I never called the pain I had severe pain. Even during that time I was able to go on with my normal routines except I had to be careful with the use of my are on the side of where the PM was implanted for about 3 weeks. After that, I seldom notice the thing unless the site itches a little which it does from time to time.

As for your cruises, go along just as if you do not have a pacemaker. Don't let that thing control your life because like I said, it is there just to help out when you need it. It is not the reason you are alive today. And don't worry about that cruise line having a foreign doctor that does not understands or know anything about a pacemaker. Numbers I saw the other day said that about 40% of the doctors implanting pacemakers in the U.S. are foreign born. They come here to get their training, and by practicing on us, and then go home to continue their practice.

When you get your first checkup ask whoever does it what percentage of the time your pacemaker is working. Until a few months ago mine was helping the atrial <5% of the time and the ventricle <2% of the time. It is now A. >90% and V. >5% but I had some major changes made in the settings which improved my heart function and made me feel much better before the % usage increased.

As for your coumadin, I have been on and off that stuff several times since my first heart surgery in 1982. The biggest problem I've
ever had was bruising. If the reason it was prescribed for you is related to your PM surgery, then my guess is you will be off of it before long. In the meantime, don't worry about falling and having a brain hemmorage or some other disaster because of the coumadin. It would take a gross overdose to cause that and I'm sure you are being monitored with routine blood tests to be sure your dosage is correct.

As for the palpations, your body has been traumatized by your surgery and palpations are not uncommon when that happens. Give your body a few days and see if they don't become fewer.

I'll stop my ramblings now, but not before I say give yourself time to get over the shock of feeling as if you have become a clone of the Energizer Bunny. As for going back to work, check with your doctor on that, but many people do go back in a couple days. Last but not least, don't let what you read here from people that have had problems with their PM, silence your thoughts on what is in store for you. This site has some 10K members, most of which have had a problem with their PM. However, remember that have been several million pacemaker/defibrillator implanted, so our number is a very small percentage of that total. But, with that said, this is a good place to tell of your problems and expect to learn from others that had or have the same problems and how they solved them.

I wish you the best,

You are OK

by richan - 2010-02-10 03:02:28

Hi Celia,
As you can tell by all these responses, you are not alone. I have been told that some of us do experience a little depression after this kind of surgery.
I found it a difficult adjustment - getting used to the idea of being dependent on this little gizmo. I am on my second one and am very please to be around. I can do pretty much what I did pre-PM. At age 70, I don't quite have the stamina during swimming work-outs that I used to have - I don't think that is because of my PM.
Make sure you get your print-out from your Cardiologist before you travel.
Live is good, Celia. You can do it!!!

Peace,

Richan

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