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And if not, why? Reason I ask is because person in my family has both conditions, and shortness of breath appears to be because of weak heart. How would pacemaker help?
Mike_T says:
I know exactly how you feel, I was in a very similar situation. I remember that I was so nervous at that time and I took it out on everyone around me. I didnt know what could I do until, thanks god, I found Smoke Deter. Now I can look back and laugh on myself and in the same time I remember how helpless I was. I hope that I'll never be in the same situation again
a pacemaker regulates the electrical impulses of the heart, and is not typically a treatment for chf or copd.
Generally, a person with both CHF (congestive heart failure) and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) already have a major component of right ventricular failure (which is why they tend to fill up with fluid in the lungs [pulmonary edema])
That said, many CHF/COPD patients do end up with pacemakers because the heart muscle is chronically ischemic (that is, low in oxygen) and this eventually results in poor transmission of pacing signals from the pacemaker node of the heart. Also, the stretching of the right atria from the congestive component of CHF can result in pacemaker failure. A pacemaker does not really help the condition, because the heart muscle itself is weakened due to the disease, but it does result in more normal rhythms, especially if the person develops atrial fibrillation, which is potentially deadly.
The best treatment for CHF is generally diuretics (to reduce the fluid load), a fluid and sodium restricted diet, B-type natriuretic peptide therapy (nesiritide), steroids, ACE inhibitors, and/or beta blockers. Also eliminating other aggravating factors like quitting smoking, and controlling diabetes, and adding mild exercise to promote venous return and minimize dependent edema in the legs.
Patients with severe CHF are at high risk for sudden death from ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation. The treatment for these conditions is a properly calibrated electric shock – and the sooner the better! If the shock is delivered within seconds of the start of v-tach or v-fib, the chances of survival are near 100%! For this reason, cardiologists will often opt to put an implantable defibrillator in patients with severe CHF. A pacemaker is usually bundled in with the defibrillator but in these cases, it’s the defibrillator that the cardiologist is most interested in.
If a person with CHF had a separate condition that made their heart go too fast or too slow, a pacemaker would be helpful because a heart that’s going too fast or too slow could cause exacerbations of CHF – a pacemaker would help prevent this.
To my knowledge, pacemakers have no role in the management of COPD.