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Avatar universal

BPM puzzler

Anyone here who can explain this to me....

I have always had a high resting heat beat, 95-110 bpm even when I was a fit and healthy skinny minnie teenager but I've never had it checked during exercise until earlier today.

I'm a 42 year old overweight ex smoker with emphysema, upper lobes are shot and to be eligible for LVR surgery I have to take part in pulmonary rehab. I went for my assessment today, had an oximeter placed then had to do 6 minutes of walking. I started off at 97% sats and resting puslse of 105 bpm, after 6 minutes of walking my oxygen sats had dipped to 92% and my pulse had dropped to 72. The nurse doing my evaluation just shrugged and said she had no idea.

I recently had an echo and no heart trouble was detected so not worried as such but if you need to increase your heart rate to increase health and fitness and burn calories i'm a bit stumped as to where I stand

Thanks in advance

Cat
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Avatar universal
thanks for your reply

Yes my pulse has been taken many many times at rest, always between 95 and 110. I've asked Dr's and recently the cardiologist that performed my echo why so high and they just said normal for me

As for my bpm dropping with walking, yes I was severely short of breath but I do have emphysema with only half my lung capacity.

I'm trying desperately to lose weight with diet and exercise but its proving nigh on impossible and i'm now wondering if my reverse acting BPM could be hindering.  But will soldier on at a lb a week if thats what it takes. It Just seems really odd for my bpm to drop immediately after exercise and will speak to my G.P when I'm next seeing him and see if i get more than a brush off shrug
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612551 tn?1450022175
COMMUNITY LEADER
Not sure why you pulse rate dropped after starting your walk, and a HR of 72 is quite low for someone in the physical condition I understand you to describe.  Still, the question is:  how did you feel?  Any shortness of breath or dizziness?  If no, then the HR of 72 was doing the job and I'd not worry about it... but I'd be worried about a resting HR of 105, that is too high in my view.  Perhaps you resting HR is lower than 105, do you ever measure it when you are truly at rest?  Here I mean seated and being in that state for at least 10 minutes and not anxious or worried about anything... just resting.  If that HR is over 100 I think you should talk with your doctor about lowering you HR.
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