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From: tim
47 year old male
email i sent to family out of province family below:
I was kind of hoping no one would find out about the pacemaker but that was a dream.
Bad news travels fast they say. I told the kids and **** myself. ***** is worried about hugghing me too hard and ****** wants to know if it is an energizer battery.
Anyway, when I spoke to Mum it made me think about my lifestyle and question whether this was really serious and a sign of really poor health, but having thought it through, I am sure this is just an unusual way to control one or two fainting spells I have each year. There is quite a bit of info on the internet about this and many threads from people who tell stories about their fainting. It is called vaso vagal syncopy or something like that. When I first went on the internet, I traded emails with a lady from California on the pacemaker topic and she siad it was just the ticket for her.
http://www.clinicalpsychologist.com/clinicalpsychologist/Vaso-Vagal1_frm.htm has a lot of info from people who get this but the cause and symptoms are all over the map.
My doctor first told me to get a pacemaker 5 years ago because my system is too sensitive to 3 or 4 triggers that makes your pulse slow down. That on top of my unusually slow heart rate of 48-50 beats a minute makes me susceptible to light headedness and fainting. I put it off for five years after finding out what caused the pulse to slow down. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop waking up at night feeling anxious and a little dehydrated. sometimes I would pace and it would go away but sometinmes I would not be able to stop it even if I laid down as many people sugggest.
So after five years of avoiding the knife, my doctor and I finally decided it needed to be done because every fainting spell at 4:00am was more than alarming for *****. There are intenet rumours that say some peolpe have died when their heart fails to restart. My doctor was worried that I would faint and hurt myself too.
The cardioligist met me again to review my 5 year old stress test and halter test he gave me and then had me in 10 days later for the surgery.
I spent all of 8 hours in the hospital Tuesday including 4 hours of prep. The other 3 people being done that day averaged 92 years old. I'm not kidding. They thought I was overflow from the daycare down the hall.
The drugs were very satisfying and they controlled the pain too. After they wore off, I used exttra strength Tylnol for a couple more days.
Anyway, my heart rate is now 60 and I feel great 5 days later except I am a little sore around the incision. I went back to work Thursday, did a light workout last night, walked up and down the sideline as flag person/line judge at ***** soccer game today and will start jogging/hockey next week.
I have to go to my doctor next week and a pacemaker clinic in mid November where they will check the zapper and anwere questions. I have to carry a card in case of emergency, I set off the airport security evary time and you can hear me tick if you listen very closely.
A couple of doctors wanted to ask me or explain to me how the battery and cable go in but I said unless necessary, you can leave that part out.
Depending on where we set the heartrate, the battery needs to be replaced every 5-15 years.
So now you know what I think