New pacemaker, fast heart rate

Heart health and blood vessels
1

My father had a pacemaker fitted yesterday and this morning he woke up at 6AM with his heart rate at 132 BPM and was shaking. The hospital gave us a number to call, we left a message but they never returned the call. He went to see the GP as he as he is scared of the hospital, seen enough family go there and not return. The GP said that it can happen after surgery and not to worry, I'm worrying anyway, is this typical?

His pulse went down to 35 afterwards before returning to 60. The problem in the first place was that he was fatigued pretty much all of the time. It took 6 years to get this pacemaker, to finally acknowledge and diagnose his problem and not just say your old, live with it.

2

Does the hopsital have an emergency dept, does not sound normal to me. 

GP would not be alot of help for pacemaker fault problem, and would not have the equipment to check it I would think.

Husband has pacemaker fitted, pulses along at about 60 bpm, seems to be the base line setting of the manufacturer. 

He has 100% blockage of electrical activity both left branch bundle and right branch bundle.

Lucky to survive, they put him on monitoring to try and find out what was going on, at first blamed problems on heart failure drugs, apparently some can slow you heart beat alot, exactly what they are meant to do, but not down to 30, and then the next day down to 23 BPM, could not move from bed or even sit up, passed out.

Only when the consultant came along did we get some sensible assistance and instructions for pacemaker to be installed immediatly.

Not impressed by junior cardiologists Dr's at all.

3

remember sqeeky wheels are the ones that are given the grease.

Make a first class nuisance of yourself until you understand what is going on and why fathers heartbeat like it is, not normal.

4

It's been a real farce, cardiology just say go to your GP repeatedly, GP says it will take time to settle.

They parents went and camped out in A&E all of Sunday, morning till night, his right side was swelling and he found it hard to breathe amongst over problems. My Dad ended up going to hospital in an ambulance Sunday morning. They figured it out, one of the leads had come loose. They think it must be triggering his diaphram. They sent him home and told him to wait until they could operate on him but did not turn the pacemaker off or disable the lead.

So they went back to A&E Monday morning until 5PM when they were told to leave and wait for a call. The difference this time is that they disabled the loose lead and now he is back to normal. This problem started day one but it took six days after the operation to acknowledge their was a problem and diagnose it and it was another day until they resolved the problem for now. Over the course of the week my Dad has turned into an old man.

The after care has been terrible, the phone number they were given if they had any problems is an answer machine that does not respond. Everyone keeps fobbing my Dad off and telling him to give it six weeks, for him to go to the hospital it must be really bad, he has close to what you might call a phobia about hospitals considering the family he's seen die there. This was supposed to give him a new lease of live but so far its taken more than it has given, problems happen and it is a risk we accepted but the problem has been compounded by total complacency.

5

Agreed. Squeeky wheel gets the grease is probably the best advice you can give anyone going through the NHS for something serious. 

6

Hard to breathe - possibility of lungs filling with fluid, as his heart function is so low, he is not exchanging oxygen across his lungs correctly.

Listen to his lungs does he sound wet. if so he needs to back at the hospital to control the fluid build up, I'm sure you probably already have the tablets amoung your collection of drugs, but best not to treat yourself.

Frusemide is one of the drugs to clear fluid, makes you pee like crazy, but could be a problem if he has kidney issues.

Frusemide gave my Mum drug induced dementia, horrible, she didn't know when or where she was, until I begged them to stop giving it to her, but for husband saved his life, so crazy that it works so well for one and not for the other.

Do you have a heart specialist hospital within driving distance, and does it have a emergency dept.

Again local hospital nearly did for husband, but heart hospital totally different story, they admitted him and kept him for 8 days nand stablised him.

We have since been in the care of the heart hospital ever since, and even the junior staff their have made mistakes.

I educated myself about heart failure, bundle blockages (electrical activity of the heart) dialated cardiomyopathy, which is what my husband has, at first got on the interenet, and read dr to dr papers, university papers, and even borrowed books from the library until I understood what I was dealing with.

My knowledge and lack of medical training has been questioned by junior staff much to the senior professors/consultant disgust, he told them off in front of us, and demanded they meet him in his office with husbands file, would have loved to have been a fly on that wall.

Nurses amazed, she said nobody talks to the consultant like that.

I Do when it comes to my husbands life, he seemed to be very freindly and nice to us, but I wasn't asking silly uneducated questions either, and i refuse to be frightened by him as are the staff in the hospital, they are terrified of the man.