Pacemaker

[scpck]

I was recovering from some pretty intensive GYN surgery and was resting in bed that evening at home.

My family came in a few minutes later and describes my having a seizure jaws clenched, pupils widened, and talking gibberish. They called 911.

In the ER I slowly regained my thoughts, though there were some topics that have been totally forgotten. Then on the monitor they witnessed a 9 second bradyarrythmia (pause in heart beat). Apparently this is a long, long pause. Still quite confused, I didn't realize that there might be something wrong with my heart. Over the subseqent week, I had a workup of labs, troponin, alk phos, CPK all fairly elevated. Others were wnl.
On the 3rd day it was decided I needed a pacemaker It's still pretty sore. What I want to know is if I can feel it when it fires? Twice yesterday I had a sensation of someone punching me below my sternum-HARD enough to knock my breath out. I wasn't doing anything unusual, first taking some papers to the trash recycle box, and the second time locking the front door getting ready for bed. Anyone have anything like this before? My next checkup is in November, and at the moment I feel just fine.

Thands,
scpck

[heartdoc]

You should not feel pacemaker when it "fires ". If you have recuurent feeling of palpitition than check with the cardiologist who inserted pacemaker. Sometimes pacemaker function and parameters need to be adjusted and can be done by exernal programmer. Pacemaker doesn not "fire" like defibrillator, it stimulates heart to beat when needed.

[scpck]

Thank you heartdoc. However, it isn't like a palpitation, but more like a heimlich done wrong. Does that make sense. In the comics it would be like "oooof."