Had pacemaker surgery 3 weeks ago

A 2 for 1 heart block occurs when the ventricle only beats once for every 2 beats initiated in the atria (which are initiated by the heart's natural pacemaker, i.e. the sinus node). As a result, when my heart wanted to beat 70, it only beat at 35 due to AV block. On Wed Apr 16 I was out shopping with my wife. After walking to the entrance of Walmart I had to stop. I could not walk further. My wife drove me to the ER which originally was to be the hospital where I had single graft bypass surgery on Valentines Day. Along the way she asked if I would prefer to go to Mayo. My initial reaction was no let's just continue to where I was just operated on. But after a bit of thought I said, OK let's go to Mayo. That was a great decision and I owe it to my wife. Experiencing life with a 2 for 1 heart block was horrible. My quality of life would have been so bad that I would not have wanted to continue living. Since AV block is progressive I probably wouldn't have lasted long anyway. So getting my life back is a testament to science, technology and medicine. Now I look forward to seeing what adjustments I need to make or can make. For example, my PM is rate responsive. It's supposed to recognize when I'm exerting myself and ramp up accordingly. There may be settings that increase it's sensitivity so that it more readily recognizes for example that I walking up stairs. So it wouldn't jump ahead to 125 but maybe increase my heart rate to more closely match the effort needed. But I don't know for sure. I'm tracking my experiences so that when I have my next checkup in 6 weeks, I can provide data to help make an informed decision/adjustment if indeed my PM has the capability. Well, that's a lot of info from me. Thank you for reading and your messages. It helps me to share it, along with my daily diary, because it provides balance. Ted

I had my ICD implanted 30 days ago. I got a monitoring device delivered to me and i don't know what to do with it. Can you explain it to me and is it a necessity?

Wow! You mean your surgeon and or cardilogist did not go over the device? That is terrible.

Please contact the cardiologist you are being treated by about this.

You can also contact the manufacturer of your device for guidance. Boston Scientific uses a system called latitude. I am not sure if that is the program others use.

What it is is a device you can hook up to your phone or wi fi. It will connect with the device company and collect your device information. In turn it will be sent to your cardilogist or pace clinic for inerpretation.

Your cardiologist needs to set up what they want from your home monitor with your device company. They will decide how often they will do a remote check of your device and on which day or time.

Your pacemaker will "talk" to the remote (you will never feel it or know it was done) and needs to be a certain distance from you. I have mine next to my bed. The device will record your electrical history and be able to tell your cardiologist PVCs, PACs, tachacardia, pulse rates, and any wire issues. Normally a cardiologist will read it when they get the remote informatino send to them and they will contact you about any issues.

I have a remote down every 3 months from home. I go into pace office once a year to do further testing like raising and lowering pacing, checking impedieance levels, as changes to your ICD/Pacemaker cannot be done remotely.

Really bad you were not given a full briefing on this. Was there anything inside box to help guide you? I have latitude remote and boston scientific ICD/Pacemaker.

No my surgeon never told me to expect it and i don't see my Cardiologist till May 9th. But thanx so much for the info. I have Medtronic and i did call but can't get a live agent to talk to. I will keep trying tho.

I agree with you, jc76,
I got my pacemaker and home remote/monitor in the hospital and explained to me before I left.--Mine was a Boston Sientific