bwaarp, please just forward this thread to her if you can. It could make a difference

+1 for legolam need to have more discussion with your consultant about your options, I always thought people were able to exercise on pacemakers. Good luck.

I really can’t. We have both sworn to each other we’d have the other arrested if we talked. (We ended in a way where one side had to have the last word)

The advice that I can give based on what happened to her is to see another consultant in a different hospital…… as she worked for the NHS she somehow managed to end up being given two consultants or something in two different hospitals (one at home, one at uni)…she played them off against each other to get the best opinion. Apparently their opinion varied quite a bit. One gave her a cocktail of drugs that the other thought was idiotic etc etc.

That’s all the disease related helpful advice I can give, I’m really really sorry but I can’t forward this to her. I can’t remember many more details as I’d blocked her out of my mind until today and have forgotten what truly happened, I’d forgotten she existed.

I’ll try to tell you how she dealt with it though, she was a kayaker. As you can imagine blacking out when kayaking is not good but being the mental case she was she would get in dual kayaks with her mates. Last time I heard she had sorted most of the heart problems and was back kayaking in single boats again but there was about two years when she thought she wouldn’t be able to kayak again. If she had a pacemaker fitted I’m sure she could have carried on with the kayaking though, if her heart problems were controlled as it’s requires more strength as opposed to fitness imo.

So maybe the OP could try taking up another sport if he get’s a pacemaker. Kayaking is brilliant.

is it worth seeing another consultant, maybe privately if need be? I have no specific experience though..

Stay positive..

Can’t really add anything but stay positive ton. After my (quite serious) health issues last year I always thought along the lines that life can often deal you a really shity stick somtimes but its how you clean it that counts. 😉

Ton, you don’t know me but I’ve been doing some reading up and found this;

What if I have a PACEMAKER?

Post Implant:
Hopefully your pacemaker has been sited near to your non-dominant and least used arm. Do not worry if this is not so. The doctor probably had a good reason for not doing this.

You must limit weight-bearing arm movements on the side you had the pacemaker implanted so that the pacemaker wires have a good chance to become well embedded into the heart muscle.

The pacemaker implant site may take a few weeks to completely heal and for the bruising to go away. While there is bruising you may feel some muscular pain in your chest or shoulder. For this reason you might like to avoid heavy lifting until this has completely gone.

Follow-up:
Keep on you at all times your Pacemaker Identification Card which you should have been given soon after the pacemaker was implanted.

If you do not yet have one of these ask if you can have it. If you have not received your next follow-up pacemaker check appointment do not assume it will eventually come in the post. Telephone the hospital department that does the checks and ask them to confirm your next pacemaker check appointment date and time and write this on your calender or in your diary. It is very important to turn up for these pacemaker checks. As a cardiac athlete who indulges in frequent episodes of high-rate pacing, you may need to have slightly more frequent follow-up checks in order to more closely monitor battery depletion. If you can not make your appointment for some reason or other please notify the hospital as soon as you can so that your appointment slot can be offered to someone else who needs it. Be sure to ask for a new appointment for yourself.

If you experience any worsening of symptoms report it immediately to your doctor / physician without delay and get it checked out. You should report any dizziness, increase in breathlessness or fatigue, persistent chest muscle twitch or hiccups, bruising, redness, swelling, increase in palpitations, a pulse below the lower pacing rate, itching, tenderness, inflammation, or discharge around the pacemaker wound site or any of the symptoms you experienced before you had the pacemaker inserted and of course any angina.

Pre Exercise:
Ideally you should have a post-operative exercise ECG test prior to starting a supervised hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation programme six to seven weeks after the procedure and to complete this before commencing training on your own.

Type of Exercise:
A suitable exercise training programme depends very much on your underlying heart conduction abnormality, what type of pacemaker system was implanted and your other cardiac history.

The exercise programme that is generally recommended for pacemaker patients is similar to that of all ischaemic cardiac conditions ( stable angina, angioplasty, stent, MI and CABG patients ) so please refer to the recommendations for Angina patients above.
Initially you should just concentrate on doing low to moderate intensity and duration aerobic type exercises and build up your fitness and stamina.

Eventually you should be able to do most activities and sports but not ‘contact sports’ as they could potentially damage your pacemaker.

Care must be taken with activities / exercises that involve excessive Range of Movement ( ROM ) in the shoulders as this increases the likelihood of crushing the pacemaker wire between the first rib and collar bone. This is sometimes refered to as a ‘clavicular pinch’. A few examples of excessive shoulder motion can be seen in certain yoga postures, seated overhead presses, swimming butterfly and two-handed racket or golf swings.

Self-Regulation:
You can calculate safe and effective exercise training heart rates by use of the standard Karvonen equation explained on the web pages above. The maximal training heart rate of 80% of HRR ( or 85% of MHR ) can be programmed into the pacemaker as the maximal pacing rate.

As a cardiac athlete with a pacemaker it is adviseable to occasionally record your exercising, peak exercise and recovery blood pressures alongside your pulse rates.

Rate Responsiveness:
Some pacemakers have activity sensors which detect body activity and adjust the pacing rate accordingly. Some of these pacemakers are ‘semi-automatic’ and self-adjusting. Others need to be fine-tuned by the doctor or technician at your pacemaker follow-up checks.

There are many pacemaker parameters which are useful to the cardiac athlete and these can all be adjusted. The ADL ( Activities of Daily Living ) rate should be programmed to provide adequate cardiac output during your typical daily activity. The Activity Acceleration slope determines how quickly you get up to your exercise training heart rate. A Rate-Adaptive AV feature mimics normal physiological responses to vigorous exercise. The Upper Sensor Rate and Upper Tracking Rate should be programmed to provide a cardiac output that meets your metabolic demand during exercise without provoking symptoms such as angina, etc. The Activity Deceleration slope determines your recovery rate after exercise.

Diagnostics:
In order to monitor how successful any programming changes are the appropriate diagnostic functions should be set to ‘on’. This is like having your very own internal 24 hour ECG recorder and will help to fine-tune the pacemaker to you and your sporting lifestyle.
Source; Cardiac athletes I think it goes to show you should never give up on something you love; there’s lots of options open to you.

There is also a paper published thats proves the value of exercise for people with AF, it’s far from a life time exercise ban than it was once thought.

Good luck and all the best. Hope to meet you soon.

Edit; woa, sorry for the war n peace quote; didn’t seem that long when I read it! S’all relevant tho; really interesting

Ton, no advice to offer but Thanks for guiding me on the best urban mtb ride round Leeds a few years back

Hi Ton,

I’ve emailed you a message from a friend. He had some serious heart problems and a bleak prognosis. He is now doing really well.

Hope it helps.

Kudos, got the email cheers, i will have a read in a while.

Tony,

That sucks, big time.

As many have said, Its been both a pleasure and an honour to ride with you fella, The Black Hambleton ride, stands out as one of those.

Riding great trails with dear freinds has to be one of the best things in the world.

I’d glady bring the dogs over, and walk across the tops of Sutton Bank with you fella. Granted, its not ( quite) the same as riding it, but we could still walk and talk bollocks the same as if we where riding.

I’ll be back over soon, so will pop in and catch up.

Nick

ton – as you know, I have a-fib too. Mine’s just lone/paroxysmal now (with no known cause) and my heart’s in otherwise good nick*.

I got myself OK with the idea of a-fib on the basis that I’d use up as much time now as I can to do all the things that worsened a-fib in a few years would stop.

I like to think of it as the “nursing home” test – when you’re old and in the nursing home, you’ll be glad you have some great tales of rugby and bikes to bore the other inmates with.

*Sadly, I also now have to have a test for a rare heart disorder that has only two symptoms: blacking out and/or sudden death. This has put my a-fib in context..!

Not the news I wanted to hear for you Tony, not the news at all.

I’m gutted for you, but I’m also confident that, knowing you and your character you will get up and get this tackled head on. The shock must be immense at the moment and you need to take a bit of time to get thing’s in perspective.

We are all here for you mate… I don’t mean that just on here… I mean in real life… anytime you fancy a run out, a chat or just a download you know where I am.

Thinking of you Big Fella… Thinking of you.