Living 4 Years with a Pacemaker 

Cheers mate :) I have had a pacemaker for 2 years, I have just celebrated my 30th birthday recently, and I admit that I also had the same fears you had, probably many more considering that I was a 28 year old. I believe that nowadays I am more confident to do my daily taskes and I was finally able to go back to the gym for e.g. Sometimes I have terrible days, im not feeling 100% but I think is part of the " process " lest say, and on those days I think " Ok , im not ok but I have you ( pacemaker ) so do you job and shut up " ahahah The secret but also the hardest part too, is gaining confidence to do things again that we weren't afraid to do until now with the pacemaker. Life is to live, and if something gets wrong, do it again and belive in better day. Big hug and keep strog. Manuel A young guy from Portugal living in Poland

Hello: my name is Alicia. I live in Arizona. I have been listening to your comments for a year almost. May 12, 2023 ,I had my pacemaker implant. After the surgery, I had so many unanswered questions. I am lucky to have found you, because I have learned so much from you. My life changed dramatically, from an energetic 78 year old, full of life and vitality to an anxious slow moving being. I suffer two months of dizziness and unbalance, i was afraid i was to suffer a stroke at any moment. Once I was called in for a devise check up, it was discovered that there was something unusual going on with one of the leads. It was tuned and since I have no issues. Now it’s a matter of regular check ups. Thanks to you, I have learned to keep my mind still and take it a day at a time. You are my inspiration and I pray the Lord to keep you safe and healthy. Thanks.

Thank you very much for sharing your pacemaker journey. I just had a pacemaker last week and I am learning so much from your videos.

The only worry I had was pulling or dislodging the leads because I would forget not to reach over my shoulder height. I had some secondary swelling at incision site, urgent care visit. I am doing great, never give it a second thought. Only bad thing I found out is I am using it a lot, so battery replacement may be sooner than 7 to 8 years. Oh well, I'm still travelling in my campervan this coming spring, USA here I come.🤩😉🙂

Thank you for sharing. This helped me out so much. I’m one month out.

I am really happy for you, from the bottom of my heart I hope you live long and enjoy whatever you want in life. You might silently be keeping up spirits of soo many people.. best of luck my brother.

Thanks for the update. It's helpful to see someone who has gone through this as my medical team is evaluating me for a pacemaker at age 33.

It's so good to hear you're still doing alright. Besides all the health problems. I hope it will continue to be okay! I've had the same experience you had with re-prioritising my life and what is important. I allow myself to persue things I would have put to the side before as I deemed them non-essential. I just want to enjoy the time I have and I learned that time can be shorter than I thought. I do have anxieties still, especially since my replacement surgery will be sometime next year. But all in all, I feel like I learned a lot having gotten the pacemaker. I hope things will stay good!

Thanks for sharing. God bless you !

This has been so helpful because I’m having all of the same feelings but I have no one to express them to. You gave me confidence to move ahead with getting mine. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your experience about the pace maker.because it helps me to inderstand what pace maker can do to our life.i am 72 years old i had just my pace maker nov.11 but they did not do it well so i had passed out17hrs after my pace maker so they re do it again for the second timein the first time i did not feel any thing but the second time wow its to pain but i thank you to the 2 pilipina nurse they are on my side to tell you i dont have no idea about that pace maker untill i had.now im to scary what will happend but when you related about your experience i become brave to understand.thank you so much for sharing your stories i got it we have to be strong and have faith to almighty god abave.

Always great to hear from you again. Love hearing how your outlook on life has changed since getting your PM, I had a similar experience when I got mine two years ago . Sorry to hear about your hospitalizations but glad they weren’t PM related. Hopefully we’re on the downward slope of the Omicron wave of the virus. I have to take blood thinners and beta blockers because of my history of heart arrhythmia and AFib so feel like my PM is a nice safety net, especially while I’m sleeping. Cheers

Thank you

Thank you for all the insight.. I just had mine done 5 days ago..so a real newbie to all this. But I can definitely relate to the fear factors

I’m 64 years old just had a pacemaker Putin a week ago. So far so good. Go for my first check in a few days. Thankx for the info

Thank you for sharing, I'm 47 and just had my pacemaker implanted 4 days ago. When I was told that I needed it I broke down. Mainly because I have a fear of being electrocuted . But after discussing the issue with my cardiologist he explained I was not receiving an ICD I felt a little better. Also reading everyone's comments is helping with my fears. Take care and enjoy life as much as you can!

Thanks for your videos. I’m 2 weeks in to my pacemaker (heart block issues same as you). At 43 and living an active life usually cycling 2 hours a day, I do worry about whether my heart will recover back to what it was. Unfortunately the cardiologist isn’t the person to put my mind at ease - he was mostly focussed on me not dying. Your videos are a great help. Thank you.

Rhank you so much. I will be getting pacemaker I. February. All your information has helped put my mind at ease. May God bless you in your journey.

So sorry you've had the Covid issues. I had my PM installed a week ago today and it seems to be functioning just fine. I still have 3 weeks to go with my left arm restrictions and am trying to be careful with it. The surgery proved to produce far less pain than I anticipated and is best described now as a fairly low level ache at the site. I have not had too much anxiety about the procedure as I did a lot of on-line research beforehand, including watching some of your videos, and pretty much knew how the device worked and what to expect.

It's good to hear that you are still doing OK. Sorry to hear about your COVID problems, but glad you survived it. I've lost 3 close friends to COVID so far, and all were healthier than me before they got it. I promised to reply to every one of your video posts, so here it is - I have been staying home as much as possible, but both my wife and I have had our Pfizer and booster shots, and no COVID, yet. Our next booster will be due in April and I'll be 80 in April. We are staying away from others as much as possible and wearing masks when we do go out. We also dis-infect our hands, shopping cart handles, door knobs, etc. often. I have been dealing with heart problems since 2000 when I had triple bypass and a valve repair. Since then, I have collected 7 stents too. My pacemaker is now 3 1/2 years old and still working fine. It doesn't have a defib capability, but does link to a "cell phone like unit" on my night stand that collects my daily data from my pacemaker while I sleep and "phones home" to my doctor's office with the results. I guess, if anything of significance is ever found in this data, that they will contact me. I, kind-of, tested it a year ago when I was very congested, so spent a few nights sleeping upright in a chair in the opposite end of the house. They called me in the afternoon the second day asking if I was OK and then they asked me to check the cell phone unit. I explained what had happened and moved it to be near me. At least I now know that it really does something. It has no buttons, just a small display that says "OK" when it's powered up. I've never seen anything else on the display. Two years ago I was bent forward and painting some large panels that were laying on saw horses when I realized that my chest was contracting significantly with every heart beat. I stopped and sat down in a chair and this quickly went away. I then contacted my doctor's office and explained what had happened. They had me come in for a check that same day. My heart is still loose in my chest as a result of the bypass surgery in 2000, and when leaning forward, the pacemaker pulses had been getting into my chest muscles. They cut the pacemaker voltage down and I haven't had this happen to me since, but I'm now very careful of how bent over and for how long I am in that position now, and keep it to a minimum.

Hi there, I wanted to take a moment to say "thank you" for all of your videos. I'm 35 and was informed yesterday that I need a pacemaker due to Vasovagal Syncope and Dysautonomia. Occasionally, I will pass out due to various reasons and have been trying to get better answers for most of my life. I had a loop monitor implanted last year that records a 24/7 EKG and sends daily results to my Cardiologist. Last week I passed out again and had a few heart pauses, with one of them being 69 seconds. Again, I'm a young, active, healthy, and fit guy... so this news yesterday definitely hit me hard. I looked around for all kinds of information and your vlog has helped me more than anything and finally gave me some peace. So again, thank you for putting your story out there and so happy everything has gone well with your situation! Cheers to many more great experiences!! Best, Daniel

Thankyou for sharing experience I hear you and I relate it to my fathers experiences I had a lot of anxiety over the implant now have almost normalised but Sometimes I do get worried

Good videos and food for thought as I have to decide what I'm going to do. I just got my PM last week one day before my 65th birthday. I'm retired with a home and wife in the Philippines, so I don't know how I'm going to work all of that out. 8m currently staying with family in Texas as I recover and get the PM tuned.

Hey I'm 31, doctors jacked up my heart with a miss diagnosis and medication and now I'm looking at having a pace maker put in. I'm pretty freaked out. It's almost 6 am and I can't sleep. I'm very anxious. I have a sleep study scheduled for tonight. Anyhow. I appreciate your videos and will pray for you bud. Take care.

I’m lying here at 5:30am listening to your vlog, 2 days after my implant. Your story has definitely helped with the anxiety of dealing with this new life. I’ve always been very active but unfortunately I’ve felt with sleep apnea for many years and feel this may have contributed to my condition. Thank you for the vlog. Just wanted to let you know how much it has helped me deal with this. 😍

Thanks for the video's, I have had my pacemaker for a little over 2 years. My big issue is I have had a lead failure and hadc a second surgery. I'm going in this week for a device check as it looks like something is going on with the lead again.... I do think about my pacemaker, less now than I did a year ago. I would like to thank your videos helped when I ha0d the device implantation

Thank you very much for sharing your story you helped me out a lot god bless you . I have virtually identical problem to you but my heart block is caused by a long QT. I get my pacemaker on the 18th of February .again thank you very much you helped a lot of people with your videos big respect

I would like more videos like this please.

Got sleep apnea in 2001. Have been well functioning on a CPAP since then, and in 2021 I had AV-Block, so doctors gave me a standard PM for pacing my heart rate, if the rate went below 30. Sadly enough, that PM (2-lead) was only attached to the right heart chambers. Eventually it leads to dysfuncion in the syncronisation of the Left and Right part of the heart, leading to severe fatigue, breathlessness, central sleep apnea and lifethreathening worsening of my Ejection Fraction from 60% down to 23%. I have now been offered a Biventricular Pacemaker (CRT-P 3 leads), which stimulates both sides and synchronize them, and should bring the heart pump back to normal again. It was running like a motor missing two spark plugs. Hope it will work.

Thanks for the update and sorry to hear that you have been suffering from COVID infections. I am pacemaker dependent after a heart attack. It paces me at a minimum of 60 bpm. The original pacemaker was replaced within a couple days. I am not sure why because I was out of it. Six months later they replaced it again with a two lead model that increases the ejection fraction. It also has a built in defibrillator. No problems since the new one got adjusted and I feel great. The defibrillator gives me peace of mind. Luckily I have not needed it. I am back to all of my normal activities except for the gym (too much COVID around).

Hey there. I'm a 39 yo dude about to turn 40 and just got my pacemaker five days ago due to some night (REM sleeping) AV blocks (I had a 3rd degree one of more than 8 seconds caught in a routine holter exam...). When we found that, my cardiologist got me in a semi intensive care for a set of exams. During my time in the hospital (fully monitored) I had only a couple of minor night AV blocks that wouldn't raise great concerns. However, the lenghty one caught in the previous exam left everyone very worried. I have two kids (aged 5 y and 1 month) and my decision to get a pacemaker was mainly based on me wanting to be around them for as long as I can. I lost my mother when I was 10 and I don't want them to be raised without one of their parents. I don't want them to have to cope with that. As far as I can tell, I never had any syncopes of faints during the day, but apparently I might have been having some of them during my night time. One thing that I noticed is that I am not feeling as tired or wasted after waking up as compared to before having the pacemaker implanted, so maybe this condition was impacting my life silently - even though it was detected completely by chance. Anyway, what worries me the most is assuring that the cause of my heart condition is not something that will do further damage, and that the pacemaker will be an effective way to deal with it and (hopefully) restore my life expectancy to "normal" levels. I usually have higher heartbeats (usually around 75-85 bpm) at rest, but since it went down to 43 bpm during the AV blocks, I asked my cardiologist to set the minimum pace threshold to 50 bpm so the devide wouldn't kick in too often. as opposed to the standard 60 bpm threshold (I see from your videos that you also had this particular issue in a first moment, so I guess it was a good call to set it below 60 bpm). Right now I'm a little bit scarred - as anyone would - and wondering how much the pacemaker is getting busy, since I don't think I have noticed any pacing from it so far. Anyway, thanks for sharing your videos and I hope that you are doing well. I'm now definetely part of this cyborg community. Finally, sorry for my broken English: I'm not a native speaker, as you may have noticed by now. Cheers!

Hello, I had my pacemaker implant last April 24, 20/24 some say thebattery will last for 10 years but my nurse say 15 years, is it normal thatsometimes my pulse rate that sometimes that sometimes myheart rate is low and sometimes high. How many months before I can move normal? My incision isnot yet dry andstill hurts when I lift my hand high, thank you for your videos.

Yesterday I got the news I will be needing one of these (30 yo German). I am slightly panicking (first one getting in my circle) and also worried about these random "touches" it could give me. Your videos have been informative and I can also see how these experiences change people, I myself have become a more "live in the moment" guy. Thank you for the morale boost

Thank you fr your blog What is the life expectancy of a pacemaker patient ?

Is ther important to take medicine after implement pacemaker plss reply

Thank you for your update. What is the live expectancy with pacemaker? I heard it is similar to a person with no heart issues as long as the pacemaker does the job.

i am getting my pm @79....your vids helped my anxiety.... i already use a CPAP... so will be interested in effects... 10 yr battery life no issue 😁

I am struggling with my decision to get a Pacer...very frustrating.

I’m getting an ICD March 26 and I am worried about being a cyborg.

How are you feeling now

Sorry for the covid. It was kinda freaky at 1sr but used to it; I had a herniated disk in my back and that turned out to b a work of congress to get an MRI.

Why does it pace you at such a normal threshold? I sleep and my HR goes down to 40 easily. It’s normal.