am Ii to blame?

prior to having my pacemaker fitter a few weeks ago I spent a week of intense weight lifting with little cardio.Could I of possible over exercised my heart causing a block?My friends have said the weights I was lifting were to heavy but obviously that's their own opinion and to be honest I had never felt better in the week when I was lifting prior to my heart block.I have though about this everyday since I had the block and have convinced myself I caused my heart block by working my heart to hard.AM I RIGHT?

3 Comments

no way

by Tracey_E - 2013-07-06 03:07:49

Acquired heart block is a breakdown of the electrical circuit, unrelated to muscle strength or arteries or overall cardiac health. It has nothing to do with how we eat, how we exercise, our genetics. It's a fluke, crap luck if you want me to be blunt.

If lifting heavy caused it, you'd see a lot more pacemakers in the gym. Don't know about your gym, but I'm the only one at mine.

I thought that too!

by Grateful Heart - 2013-07-06 04:07:17

Give yourself a break. In the beginning, I thought that I somehow caused it. We are so used to having answers or a reason for something.

Don gives a good analogy to a TV set that just stops working.

When I asked if I did something wrong, one of my Cardio's told me it was an idiopathy. He said "that means we're idiots....we don't know what caused it". I laughed really hard (I needed that at the time) and appreciated the honesty.

It also made me realize there is life after a pacemaker/ ICD...that was almost 5 years ago.

Welcome to the club !!

Grateful Heart

NO, You are wrong

by donr - 2013-07-06 11:07:41

The heart is only connected to the other muscles via blood flow. If you were able to lift the weights more than once & you did no lift till you collapsed, you would be a rarity if you damaged your heart through exercise. People all the time exercise to their physical limit & all they do is collapse in a quivering heap from hypoxia. Unless, of course, they have some underlying condition that causes a failure - a heart attack on the plumbing side or an SCA on the electrical side.

Of course, there is always Phiddipides, who ran the first Marathon, gave his report, collapsed & died. Unfortunately, no one was available to perform an autopsy, so we do not know why he died.

The electrical block you had is like certain waste material - it just occurs, no reason ever determined. So go forth, live long & prosper, troubling your heart not w/ feelings of guilt. You did nothing to cause it. Until someone comes up w/ a method of getting to the electrical system & examining it on a more detailed & higher resolution method, you are free from wrong doing.

Don

You know you're wired when...

Your device makes you win at the slot machines.

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