Shortness of breath

I have been in a supervised exercise program for 18 months. Was doing extremely well and for the last 4 weeks have been very short of breath. The trainers have modified my program to try to accommodate the shortness of breath. Blood tests reveal a very slight increase in thyroid. Everything else normal. Pacemaker has an upper limit of 130. I have third degree heart block and have had 2 ablations. My question is should my pacemaker setting be increased to accommodate my increase in physical fitness level?


1 Comments

SOB

by BillH - 2016-01-27 07:01:28

Unless the amount of work has increased during the exercise you should not need the upper limit increased.

And in fact as one get fitter typically the heart rate goes down for the same effort. But with improved fittness, you might be working harder and need a higher HR rate.

Does this supervised ex program include monitoring the heart rate with telemetry? If so find out what the trend has been in heart rate over the months.

Nor did you indicate what your heart condition is or why you have a PM.

Maybe the upper limit does need to be adjusted, maybe the rate response needs to be changed, or other PM parameters. Or it might be nothing related to that.

Best to see your cardiologist about a stress test and then based on that get PM changes if needed.

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