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Please help answer about a pacemaker

HI people..Ive been through an unreal number of medical problems after a lifetime of none.  One of them...skipped beats and dizziness has progressed 3 times to pauses.  The cardiologist did a stress echo...and some monitoring...my heart is fine on stress and the skipped beats which were plentiful and distressing werent life threatening BUT...I've since had 3 episodes and two were driving, where my I was losing it.  The heart paused and where it would usually thud right back, it paused long enough for me to feel Im going to lose consciousness.  Now the cardiologist is talking  a specialist for pacemaker  IS it possible that these pauses can just leave the way they came?? or is it once you get them you are forever at risk and MUST have a pacemaker?? Any words would be much appreciated
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Avatar universal
From what I've seen with other patients, it depends on what is causing the pauses. Most of the time we don't know but if you're having pauses that are causing you to loose consciousness then a pacer or just a defibrillator would be the treatment. IF it's from medication, especially if you're on heart rate control meds like metoprolol or cardizem they need to be changed, as they can cause pauses too. We have patients that get a pacemaker then go home the next day, so the procedure seems pretty low risk. Better than taking the chance of having your heart stop.
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995271 tn?1463924259
is this a true pause in systole (with an escape rhythm) or are you talking about the pause present from ectopic activity?  
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