Julie Bowen Got a Pacemaker When She Was 29

Julie Bowen shared that she got a pacemaker when she was 29 after doctors warned her that he had a heart condition that could lead her to pass out.

The Modern Family alum, now 55, told host Michael Rosenbaum on the July 1 episode of his podcast, Inside of You, that she struggles with sick sinus syndrome, a heart rhythm disorder that, in her case, was caused by increased activity in her vagus nerve, a condition called hypervagotonia.

“I have a low resting heart rate,” she said, sharing that her pacemaker is “set so that it can’t go below 45.”

The “normal” resting heart rate for women, per the Cleveland Clinic, is between 60 to 100 beats per minute. As Bowen told Rosenbaum, before the pacemaker, her resting heart rate was in the 30s.

Bowen had always been a competitive runner, she explained, but she had always had a “really low heart rate.” Her condition was ultimately diagnosed by her sister, Annie Luetkemeyer, who had just graduated from medical school. As Bowen explained, “She was at that time in her life when she, I guess, she always carried around a stethoscope. And we were on vacation, and she was like, ‘I wanna listen to this.’ “

When her sister listened to her heart, “She was like, ‘That is not what they’ve been telling you, and it’s not runner’s heart or whatever. That means you need to go to a cardiologist.’ “

Her sister, she explained, “wouldn’t let it go. I was like, ‘I’m fine.’ She would not let it go.”

A month later, Bowen shot the pilot of Ed, which premiered in 2000 and starred Tom Cavanagh.

“I shot the pilot of Ed and immediately had to go get a pacemaker afterwards,” Bowen shared. “I was like, ‘Oh my God. My life is over. This is so weird. I’m gonna die.’ I don’t know what I thought it was, because I was 29.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t die before that,” Rosenbaum commented, prompting Bowen to explain, “They said I wouldn’t probably die of it, but I’d start passing out. There was a vague feeling … whenever I was relaxed, really relaxed, I’d be, like, watching TV or movie.” It felt like “I’d been holding my breath for a while, that feeling of, like, lightheadedness. And they said, ‘You’re gonna be driving a car, and you’re gonna pass out, and you’re gonna kill somebody.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, well, then give me the Goddamn pacemaker.’ “ 

She shared that surgeons went in through her armpit, so she doesn’t have a scar, and she’s had to have the batteries replaced three times. But these days, she says, “I forget about it all the time.”

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