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i had a pacemaker put in 2 weeks ago and im still short of breath?

(2 posts)

  1. Truth
    Member

    Often these must be tweaked for a short time. Why haven't you, or have you, called your doc. It may be as simple as a bpm increase or decrease. But it could be something more serious. Get thee to your doc soon.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  2. Dr. VIKAS
    Member

    Look heart's function is to pump blood and its weakness(failure) results in accumulation of blood
    (left sided (left half of heart) failure result in breathlessness and right sided heart failure results in systemic congestion like swelling of feet, distention of abdomen, etc)
    One of the reason for heart failure is Failure of natural pacemaker of heart leading to substantially decreased heart rate. decreased rate slowly causes accumulation of blood in heart, overload and lately failure of heart.
    In your case heart with so slow rate must have gone into failure leading to shortness of breath.

    NOW YOUR QUESTION---
    Heart weakness(failure) is mostly a slowly developing condition specially in cases of pacemaker failure as is your case.
    You got your pacemaker replaced ok. This will improve the heart rate but may not completely reverse the weakness of your heart carrying accumulated blood for so long.
    This fairly depends on how long you have been living with this much decreased heart rate(30 bpm)
    Even if you didn't have it for long and got surgery early Heart may take some time to finish its previous work. Accumulaton of blood/fluid in lungs is causing you shortness of breath and heart will have to clear it up by pumping forward. 2 weeks time is not sufficient.

    Or if you still don't get satisfied,---
    You can ask your doctor about "what is your left ventricular ejection fraction"on your echocardiography. It represents the pumping ability of heart and decreases with its weakness.
    Normal is MORE than 60% or 0.6. Even if yours is above 50, you have good chances of fast recovery from shortness of breath, 40-50 is OK but below 40%, you have to rely on other drugs like diuretics(increase urine output, decrease accumulated blood volume and thus decrease load on heart) to get shortness of breath resolved. This will take time.

    in any case you should have your symptoms decrease gradually.
    If you feel you are not getting even mild comfort or breathlessness is increasing after 2 weeks then you should talk to your doctor

    Elevate your head end during sleep,
    Decrease salt and fluid intake, take prescribed medication in time, strictly follow precautions advised by physician, and have faith in God. Every problem will become tolerable at least if not solved

    Good luck

    Posted 1 year ago #

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