Matters of the heart

My sil had a resting heart rate of 40 she was becoming increasingly breathless, especially when walking up stairs. She now has a pacemaker fitted to increase it .

Katyj - did your sister in law have AF? Has the pacemaker helped.

Thank you Visgirl for your expert opinion. Very kind.
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Sorry that 16 million was per year.

30 more beats per minute x 60 minutes in an hour x 24 hours in the day x 365 days in the year = 15,768,000 heartbeats per year more than my OH.

My concentration lately has gone to pot. I meant year but typed day. To think the next job needing doing is my income tax. Help!
Never been good at mathematics.?. Sorry.

Hi, She didn’t have AF or high bp. She is better than she was, but feels she’s still not right. Has to go back soon for another check up.

Visgirl can it really be normal for my heart to have to do so much more work than my OH’s?
I can’t help wondering if this means my heart will give out sooner than his.

What was you pulse rate?

Esspee
Exercise makes the heart strong. Athletes have lower pulse rates because their heart pumps harder at each beat. Maybe yours is doing "little and often" instead of the your husband's "lots but not as often". The total work may be very similar!

Exercise is good for your heart, worrying is bad for it and sends your blood pressure up, plus if you worry about your heart you will "take more care of yourself", do less and miss out on the exercise. Stop worrying, and keep moving.

Tell your GP about your worries and they will listen to your heart, give you other tests if they think they will be useful, and put your mind at rest.

All I know is that in France normal BP is 13/7. Whatever that means.
In UK a sort of multple of that.

I know nothing of medical matters so can only suggest a call to the doctor to put your mind at rest.
Have started ‘a nice romantic’ thread for those who were expecting something different.

Blood pressure and pulse rate are two different measurements.

Blood pressure has two measures - systolic( when pumping) and diastolic (in between beats) On my home blood pressure monitor, a warning light comes on if blood pressure goes above 135 (systolic) or 85 (Diastolic) I don't know how that compares with the4 French equivalents.

On pulse rate, www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/medical/ask-the-experts/pulse-rate says "A normal resting heart rate should be 60–100 beats per minute, but it can vary from minute to minute. It can go up to 130–150 beats or higher per minute when you're exercising – that's normal because the body needs to pump more oxygen-rich blood around the body."

Esspee Take your blood pressure and pulse rate every day for a week. Before using the monitor, sit down for half-an hour with a book, or watch TV. Then put on the cuff, but don't switch it on yet Spend another ten minutes reading your book, then switch it on without fuss and go back to the book until it has finished measuring If you are anxious when you measure, you will get a far higher reading than you should, but giving your body time to calm down with give a truer picture.

Don't obsess about it, because "white coat syndrome" sends both blood pressure and pulse rate up, and even measuring for yourself can make you anxious, as well as sitting in th surgery. Get a GP appointment if you think either are higher than they should be.

Thanks Elegran you've given the figures I was thinking of.
ie 13 is like 135, and 7 . is near 85.
But what systolic and diastolic mean is beyond me . Best to leave it to the medics.
Our GP in France took on trainee doctors. They sat in the consultations. He always asked them to take my BP when I came for a repeat prescription, which was the routine there.
Usually it went alright but with one poor young man he kept getting wrong results, all over the place.
After that our GP gave me a gadget to monitor my BP at home.

I'm glad the figures were useful. The recommended pressures seem much the same.
There are two figures because the pressure on your arterial walls increases when the heart pumps another dollop of blood into them (systolic pressure), and decreases again in between beats (diastolic pressure). There is probably much more to it than that, of course.

I've just looked it up. Systole is the medical name for the contraction of the heart as it beats, and diastole for its relaxation between beats.

All2gether. My pulse averages 89, my other half sails through life with an average of 59 beats per minute. By multiplying it up the difference in how much harder my heart is working is apparent.
My blood pressure is lower than his at 130/75 so I am not the least bothered about that.
I do not normally worry about my health. The enormity of the difference when multiplied up simply freaked me out.
Oddly my mother would have told you I’m the most laid back person she knew so it in not due to stress.

Espee One of the worst things you can do for your puilse rate is to worry about your pulse rate. The best thing is to consult yout GP and get it checked out. Get on the phone for advice and maybe a face-to-face appointment.