I had a 3rd degree heart block. This is my story....

I woke up one morning and felt very very "fatigued". Took my blood pressure, and found that it was actually pretty normal. Took it again. Still normal. Then I noticed the heart rate: 30.

Well, that's not right.

So I Googled "heart rate 30". It said I was dead. Kidding! It said I should go to the emergency room. But I'm not someone who rushes to the doctor for every little pimple, so I looked up the cause of heart blocks and found that the medication (Nebivolol) prescribed by my AdventHealth cardiologist for BP worked by interfering with the impulses stimulating the heart, and the cardiologist had started me off on twice the normal (according to online sources) initial dose. Further reading confirmed that Nebivolol could be the cause of a heart block. This was a bit of a shock since I had an EKG and stress test done a few months ago that indicated a first level heart block, but the cardiologist said those were "test errors". I guess not. And taking a double dose of Nebivolol seems like a very bad idea.

So I stopped all BP meds, took things very easy, and watched my blood pressure AND heart rate very closely. Heart rate was going up a bit... 33....35...

The next day, first thing I did in the morning was check. Back to 30. Still felt lousy. OK. time for the ER. My spouse drove me to the AdventHealth ER in town, Lake Mary, FL.

Turns out, the AdventHealth Lake Mary ER is *not* really a hospital ER, despite what it says on the door and their huge buildings on either side. It's only for limited "urgent care". A mile away on the same road was Orlando Health Hospital (which we passed on the way), but AdventHealth decided to fly me by helicopter to their hospital in Orlando, where a temporary pacemaker was implanted that afternoon. Two days later, I got a permanent wireless model (Medtronic Micra AV2) implanted via a catheter from the groin.

The fact that I had stopped taking the Nebivolol was actually useful, since they needed to be certain the heart block persisted after I stopped taking it, and it takes a few days to leave the system. However, I wouldn't recommend waiting a day as I did before going to the ER ..... a real ER.

Now I am recovering. The wireless implant means I have no restrictions on movement, but they say it will take months for my heart to recover from the trauma. Approximately 10 years from now, I'll need a new one. They say there's room for five of them should I still be alive 50 years from now.

One last tidbit: AdventHealth billed $48,000 for the helicopter ride, despite telling us "it wouldn't cost a penny".