fainting

I'm trying to figure out why I nearly passed out this morning. I've had my pm for 10 months now with no real physical issues. I'm not on any medication and I have always had normal bp in the past. I have been real anxious for a week and struggling with holding it together. This morning I woke up and was getting ready for work when I got real hot and sweaty and then had to rush to the bed before I went blank. I'm trying to decide if this passing out was caused by my pm or the anxiety. Has anyone else experienced this?
Rusty

6 Comments

v v s ?

by boatman50 - 2008-02-04 01:02:13

It sounds like what I have experienced. Light headed, sweaty and nearly fainting. You need to see an ep about this in my opinion. My salvation was to raise the lower pm rate to 70 bpm and to drink plenty of fluids like Propel or Gatorade.

I have

by Holly - 2008-02-04 01:02:50

Yes, I have had that experience and it turned out to be a fractured lead. I never completely past out but had all the same feelings that you described. Please don't ignore this like I did. I almost died.

Holly

Fainting

by BOB 1 - 2008-02-04 02:02:28

Rusty,
My guess is that your pacemaker did not cause your problem. A pacemaker doesn't really start or stop anything with our heart. Its only job is to monitor our heart beat and send an impulse for the purpose of causing a heart beat to replace any heart beats not created by your heart's natural pacemaker. Of course if you have a defibrillator, then that is an entirely different story as it is supposed to send electrical shocks to stop your heart from beating momentarily so that it can restart itself at a normal heart rate. Also, I think it would take one humdinger of an anxiety attack to cause that. Although I can see why you would be extremely anxious after such episode. Some of the symptoms you list can accompany a heart attack. So I say don't wait for another one of these attacks to happen to see if you survive it, call your doctor. He will know significant details about what is going on with your heart and I think he is the best person to answer your question.
Good luck,
Bob

Yes!

by scadnama - 2008-02-04 02:02:45

I get those feelings all of the time! I have a problem with very low blood pressure. At all of my doctor's visits my blood pressure appears to be normal, or slightly lower than normal. My blood pressure only gets really low when I am about to pass out and I get all of the symptoms that you described. They found this out by preforming a tilt-table test.

I could very well be the leads, or it could be something similar to my situation. I would definantly contact your doctor and let them know what is going on.

Good luck,

Amanda

Passing out

by gmnordy - 2008-02-04 03:02:35

I too am suffering with this as well. I am having a tilt table test next week, because I have been having a lot of passing out or almost passing out episodes.
Please call your EP or cardiologist. I empathize with you because it is frightening.!
Debbi

Syncope

by bini - 2008-02-05 08:02:36

Wow, can I relate! Syncope is the reason I got my PM. For 3 years I have fainted almost daily, unlike you I do not get warning signs.
My fainting is caused by slow heart rate and low BP. I had a number of tests done....eeg's, tilt table tests, hypoglycemia test...
The tilt diagnosed me with slow heart rate and low BP and I found out that i am also hypoglycemic which can cause fainting as well. Stress can cause syncope, but usually you would have fainted before in other stressful situations.
I would bring it up with your cardio. The good thing is that most cases of syncope can be treated in some way, they just need to figure the source out and work from there. Also for the time being there is a great book all about syncope written by the cardio I see in Ohio. This book was VERY helpful to me. It is called The Fainting Phenomenon, just a suggestion bc it helped me.
Good luck with everything!

Christine

You know you're wired when...

You can hear your heartbeat in your cell phone.

Member Quotes

The pacer systems are really very reliable. The main problem is the incompetent programming of them. If yours is working well for you, get on with life and enjoy it. You probably are more at risk of problems with a valve job than the pacer.