Doctor

I am 57 years old. Had a stroke two years ago. I have had three ablations for A Fib and I had one for A flutter or Tachycardia. I still have the A flutter (tachycardia). I also now have a maximum heart rate of 97  as determined by a stress test and I experience dizziness fatigue and shortness of breath when doing anything more than going up a set of stairs. My resting HR is 72 but my Atria are currently 280. A cardioversion next week may fix the A Flutter but presumably I will still have the Bradycardia and thus may need a pacemaker. I was an avid backpacker and bicyclist until the stroke .  What brand, make and mode of pacemaker do you prefer to use in your patients and what type may be most helpful in my situation?

[Michael J. McWilliams, M.D.]

That is an interesting question.  If you have atrial tachycardia, I would probably implant a Medtronic Enrhythm device.  It has atrial therapies that might be able to pace terminate your atrial flutter as well as overdrive the pace to decrease the recurrence of atrial fib or flutter.  It obviously also provides the background pacing for your slow heart rate as well. There might be other devices that will do this with equal success, but this is the one that comes to mind first.  It is a very reliable device.

I hope this answers your question.  Thanks for posting.

[PikaPika88]

Clockwalk, could you please ask your dr do you need to pace on the right ventricle or not?  

I got AT & AF, sometime pause and lazy heart also.  I don't know why all my symptoms were started at the top chamber and why he paced in my right ventricle too?  I hope MJM can answer this but I don't expect because I used my question once already.  Could you ask this to your dr and post back in here?

Thanks

[clockwalk]

I will ask him but it may be a while before I get to the point of having a pacemaker implanted. Right now I have some testing to do and more Doctor appointments.
ED

[PikaPika88]

I can wait and I'll wait for that because I haven't got any appointment to see my cardio yet.  Thanks for that.  Could I ask what tests are you going to do?