Pacemaker Club: Pacer limits

Pacer limits

by ACRUR25
2014-09-08 09:09:18
Checkups & Settings
1270 views
4 comments

I have a St Jude Pacer and my upper limit is 180 is this consistent with everyone else????

Thanks,
26 y/o Joshua Shumate

4 Comments

Upper limit

by WillieG - 2014-09-08 10:09:18

Mine is 175 with Boston Scientific. I am 61 and doubt I could go higher. Usually with biking, highest is 158 or so.

Wilma

setting

by Caity858613 - 2014-09-08 10:09:24

Mine is set to go up to 180, I love running and haven't been able to when this happened, but once I start again I am sure I will get back up there.

Running

by ACRUR25 - 2014-09-09 09:09:45

I often go over 180 which causes the pacemaker to cut in half. Its hard to exercise at a high level. I wish it could go higher.

maxing out

by Tracey_E - 2014-09-09 10:09:37

There is one medtronic that goes up to 220. Most everything else out there only goes up to 180.

It doesn't have to cut in half! That's a feature designed to keep our rate from going out of control when in afib. It artificially puts us in a 2:1 block, so it'll suddenly go from 180 to 90. That's great if you are in afib, not so much if you are just trying to work out! If you have no history of afib, they should be able to turn it off. You'll still want to try to keep it under 180 because you'll be out of sync (atria going faster than ventricles) if you go higher. It'll still be annoying and affect your endurance, but nowhere near as bad as when it drops you to 90.

I developed SVT, which means when I work out my atria would sometimes shoot up to 200 suddenly. It wasn't going up from me pushing hard, but quickly going way up on minimal exertion. It happened more and more often, it got harder and harder to stay 170-175, so I eventually went on a low dose beta blocker. Now I never get over 160 and it's not an issue any longer. Not an ideal solution, but it enables me to push without fear of maxing out the pm and no stopping to wait for my rate to come down.