missed beats

This seems a little elementary but I have a couple questions.
My pm is set for a minimum 60bpm. Is it possible for my heart to skip a beat if it's beating at that minimum 60bpm. Lately it seems that it's missing beats occasionally.
I'm also having occasional tics or twitches below my left pectoral. These twitches keep beat with my heart. It's been just uncomfortable but lately, it aches some in that area. I'm getting dismissed by the doctor's office on this one. Has anyone else dealt with this? Is it a voltage thing?
Thanks,
Rusty

3 Comments

Tics, twitches etc.

by johng - 2007-05-10 04:05:13


Hi!, Rusty.

I went through the same experiences after the implant of my PM.
I found (in my case) it was a combination of anxiety and the normal twinges in muscles after any surgery.
I was prescribed a sedative by my own doctor, and these helped me over the difficult patches.
It is now a year after implant and I'm glad to say the muscle twitches and the feeling of a 'missed' beat have gradually disappeared.
I'm now almost back to normal healthwise.
For me, the mental adjustment was much more difficult than recovering physically.
Hope things work for you,
Johng

Missed Beats

by SMITTY - 2007-05-10 04:05:58

Rusty,

Below is a comment I made for R7ich a few days ago on this subject. Since wrting this, I have had a couple of discussions with doctors about the problems I am having with skip beats and PVCs. Based on these descussions I would not change anything I said.

Good Luck,

Smitty

Irregualr Hear Beat
Comment posted by Smitty on 2007-05-06 23:21.
R7ich,

Your question is simple but in reality not so simple to answer. I think doctors usually call them heart rhythm disorder, and to me an irregular heart beat can be the description given several types of heart beat. For the sake of keeping this simple so that I can possibly give an answer, let’s say your heart rate is 60 bpm. That means a regular beat is one each second. Let the heart beat deviate from 1/second and it is an irregular heart beat. This is where is gets a little deep for me, but irregular heart beats can come in different ways. You can have premature ventricular contractions (PVC) and have a heart rate of 60 BPM, counting the PVCs but your heart is not pumping blood with each of the beats you are counting. In this case you have 60 BPM but in reality the heart beat is irregular. To confuse the issue even further, we can also have skip beats, which I am told is the same as a PVC. It is a PVC that is not strong enough for us to feel if we are checking our pulse manually.

Then there is my situation, which has now been going for several weeks. I am having PVCs and skip beats but my pacemaker interprets some of them as normal heart beats and does not assist my heart with a beat that time. Let me inject something here. Before our pacemaker sends out an impulse to make our heart beat, it checks to see if the hearts natural pacemaker is sending out such signal and in which case the PM will send none. In my case my PM thought some of those PVCs were going to be natural heart beats and it sat on its rump and did nothing. The result was while my pacemaker was set to maintain a minimum heart rate of 70 BPM, I am sometimes finding my heart rate to be anywhere from a low of 43 to 65. In other words my heart’s natural pacemaker is sending out signals that are too weak to cause my heart to but they are strong enough to fake out my PM.

I have dwelled on only one type or cause of irregular heart beat, but there are others which I cannot even began to describe.

As for medicines, there are several which I know about several that are used to treat heart rhythm disorders. The one used is usually determined by what the doctor thinks is the base cause of a person heart rhythm disorder. These medicines perform miracles for some, but they have tried me on about 10 different kinds none of which have been very successful for me. There are other ways to treat heart rhythm disorders and for many discussions on this you might try one of the many web sites that will have information on this subject.

Missed Beats

by SMITTY - 2007-05-10 10:05:15

Rusty,

I failed to notice the second part of you question as I was so pleased with my self for thinking I may have an answer for the first part.

Some probably will correct me on this and I will not mind, but I THINK what you are feeling is stray current from your pacemaker stimulating a nerve. The key to it for me is that these impulses are apparently in sync with your heart beat.

I went through something very similar, but in a slightly different location on my chest, for almost three years with my PM. For the entire time the EP was telling me it was not my PM. Mine started about 3 or 4 weeks after I got the PM and it finally got so bad, I guess you could say I demanded that the thing be turned off. It may not have been my PM but the pain went away went it was turned off.

I had to have the thing restarted about 2 years later because of CHF and the pain restarted in a couple of weeks. In my case the lead in the ventricle was in such position that the current from the PM impulse was making its way to the affected nerve. The problem was solved when I got an injection to deaden the affected nerve. The alternative to the injection was to have that lead removed and a new one placed in a slightly different location. My decision was a no-brainer.

I don’t say that our problems are the same or that my cure would also be what you needed. I do know that doctors have a tendency to use “it is not your PM” as their first line of defense. They do this because they have little more idea than you do as to what is causing the problem and by denying it is the PM, they can buy themselves a little time with the hope the problem will go away. If they don’t hear from you anymore they are home free, while at the same time they know if it gets bad enough they will hear form you again.

So, my suggestion to you is that if the problem continues don’t let them think you have gone away. I think it is “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” so make them hear that squeaky wheel daily if necessary. I can promise it will take perseverance from you, but your problem can be solved.

So that you will not think this has never happened to anyone else, I have been a member of this forum for about 3 years and I have seen this exact problem discussed here at least10 times.

Good luck

Smitty

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