I am wondering if the pacemaker stops the afid from happening

Hi Betty, I'm not sure I understand pauses. Unfortunately I'm not super familiar with afib, I had a friend who had it and if he went into afib and either the pacemaker or by itself did not come back into rhythm he would go to an er and get converted. It sounds like these pauses are skipped beats? I used to have what doctors called Pvcs which do feel uncomfortable but are not usually bad enough to need treatment. Could these be what your calling pauses? Pvcs by the way stands for premature Vintricular contraction and are basically skipped beats.
Of they in your case are more often that occasional I understand there are treatments for them but I'm nit familiar with those treatments. I did have them myself but only for short periods and myndoctr sad they were not often enough to be of concern. Sorry I couldn't help more on that area.

Hi, Betty. I am no expert on the subject, but I can share with you my history that might clarify things for you. After having been previously diagnosed with occasional afib, last April I had about 4 episodes of fainting. Went to ER and was put on a heart monitor and was asked to spend the night at the hospital for continued monitoring. The next morning, I met with a cardiologist who told me that during the night my pulse dropped to as low as 33 BPM, and worse yet, I had several “pauses” of at least 4 seconds when I had no pulse. While she did not say so, it appeRed to m3 that I was a candidate to be someone who mysteriously died in their sleep! She did tell me, though, that I was a candidate for a pacemaker. I underwent pacemaker surgery the next day. The device was then dialed in to hold my pace at no less than 60 BPM. The device seems to have no effect on a fib. I was also placed on flecainide and metoprolol to keep my heart rate from racing during any future afib episodes. Hope this is helpful. Best wishes to you.