Diagnosed with heart block at 51 and needing a pacemaker

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Over the last few years I have experienced intermittent episodes of sudden bradycardia with breathlessness, feeling faint, dizzy, sweating. As time has gone on the episodes have lasted longer and longer, sometimes 12 hours. The attacks are random, I can have 3 in a week then none for a couple of months. It happens on mild exertion, say walking in cold weather, carrying something heavy down the stairs, even in the shower. I have worn numerous heart monitors which never picked it up (I do have ectopic heartbeats which were noted but benign and short svt runs), but the heart problem I experience was never picked up. I have ended up in a & e several times (after advice from gp) but always dismissed (usually as anxiety 😡). Finally, in December 24, an ecg caught some weird beats and I got an urgent referral to cardiology. When I finally saw the cardiologist he was incredibly patronising. He said it was nothing to worry about as long as I wasn’t fainting and didn’t have symptoms (which I did). He spoke to my husband, not me, the entire appointment and then discharged me. At this point I was distraught, felt not believed and doubting my own sanity. I got an Apple Watch where I can take ecgs during the episodes. After worsening symptoms, and another couple of a & visits I finally made a private cardiology appointment. I showed her the ecgs on my watch and within 5 minutes I was diagnosed with a 2:1 heart, and will be fitted with a pacemaker in a couple of weeks. I am in total shock. I am angry that no one helped me, that I wasn’t taken seriously, that my symptoms were put down to anxiety for 3 years. When the cardiologist looked back over my previous ecgs taken at a & e she was actually able to see the heart block on ones taken in April and November but the drs missed it (as a side note my local hospital a & e has just been put onto Special Measures as it performs so badly!) I am so mad about this!
So, at 51 years of age I will be fitted with a pacemaker. I feel so embarrassed about this, I don’t know anyone “young” that has this, and I’m terrified of the future with this device in my chest. If identified earlier would I still need a pacemaker? Do any of you readers have any advice? Can anyone relate?
Honestly, I don’t know what I want or expect from starting this thread. I don’t feel I can tell anyone in rl my worries, it does feel a little better just writing it all down though. Thank you for reading x

I have one but I'm a bit older, than you. However, I am a very experienced Pacing Physiologist in a local NHS trust. It was a case of "you work with them, you end up like them!" I had heart block as well plus a much younger Cardiac Physiologist had one too (late 20's) she had no symptoms.

You definitely will not be the youngest patient on the books, they are put into babies.
I suggest you have a good chat to the Pacing team when you have it fitted, great bunch they will put you are ease, it will be fine.
They last around 10-15 years, you are check remotely and you won't even know it's there after a while.
Check out the BHF website.
Best of luck

Thank you for this.

That sounds like textbook medical sexism

Ignoring your concerns and addressing your husband? That is appalling behaviour

Seems worth a complaint if you can face making one.

I know someone who's 47 who had a quadruple bypass - it may not be as rare as you think to have heart problems at this kind of age. Just as I'm typing, I've just remembered I know a 52-year-old who has had that pacemaker and defibrillator all in one as well

Anyway, I'm really sorry for what you're going through and I wish you all the best 💐

My husband got one around the age of 43 due to the electrical impulse misfiring. Right bundle branch block but not too sure if that is what caused the electrical problems or if that's something else alongside. Anyway at his last check up he was told he isn't using the pacemaker at all now. He was told it could have been congenital or caused by a virus, no one really knows but looks like it's sorted itself out 🤷🏻‍♀️

My sister was fitted with a pacemaker at 35 after fainting and suffering what they initially thought might have been a TIA. Ten years later and she no longer needed it and had it removed.

Oh gosh you poor thing. I am a cardiac nurse, there is unfortunately nothing that could have been done to change this outcome but it was very poor care.

it is unusual at such a young age, if you have children they should look out for similar signs.

pacemakers are incredibly safe and last such. Long time and very very rarely cause problems

Not surprised that you weren’t taken seriously, amazed you haven’t been asked to pee on a stick yet! 🤯

just out of interest, what’s your ferritin and where are you in your menopause journey, cos my ferritin has been below 10 (normal hb, bad vegetarian) for at least 5 years and i’m knew deep in menopause and i think a combo of the two have wreaked havoc with my heart rhythms. Estrogen is meant to be cardio protective (every little helps!) x

Hi there I had one put in last October and I am 54 at 48. My 5K time was 22 minutes. I was super fit doing a lot of sport and had had a slow heart rate for years. It was hovvering around 40.

I was under severe stress in the last two years and started to get really strange heart palpitations or so I thought. Convinced myself it was stress and too much coffee but some days I would just feel really really shaky and feel like I could hardly make it home when I was out walking my dog. I was so preoccupied with other things I just was trying to ignore it. To cut an even longer story short it got worse and worse and I presented at the doctors and the A&E a couple of times feeling faint and sensations of my heart fluttering. They put me on a monitor prior to that I’ve had all sorts like you - you know 48 hour holter monitors all of that kind of thing - but that day they put me on the heart rate monitor in A&E and my heart rate was 27.

Unbelievably they let me go and I travelled back to my home a couple of hundred miles away a couple of days later I had a really really bad episode panicked and went to A&E and they whisked me straight in. I was in hospital for six days. For most of that confined to bed on a drip to keep my heart going. They had recorded it stopping for up to 8 seconds. I had the pacemaker put in and to be honest it was pretty traumatic as it was so totally unexpected and it’s taken a lot of time to get my head around it.

I totally identify with you feeling embarrassed. I’d gone from being this super fit sporting person to feeling like it was all over and I was now some kind of weird old invalid.

Kust over 6 months on I’m just about getting used to it now, back to doing a little bit of jogging biking but it is very visible under my collar bone under the skin.

I didn’t know a pacemaker could be removed if no longer needed!

@Objectrelations i can’t be they let you go with a heart rate of 27, that’s horrendous, and you must have felt awful.

I have a lot of questions about how the pace maker works, I didn’t know they are monitored remotely. Trying not to let the stress overwhelm me whilst also tapering off propranolol before the op, which is causing horrible withdrawal effects. I could cry 😭

Good luck it does take some adjusting and the recovery takes a little while but it is super reassuring they can connect to it remotely 🙂 and it’s better than the alternative!