Most Recent Messages in Batteries & Leads

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Failing pacemaker wire

My pacemaker is a St Judes dual chamber that was put in 5 and 1/2 years ago. About 18 months ago during a routine check I was told that there is a breach in the insulation in the pacerwire in my right ventricle causing it to be impaired. Since that time I have continued to have increasing impairment in the wire and it is being watched closely. The hope, since I pace minimally in my ventricle and most of the time I am approx 90% paced in my atrium, is that they can wait and change my wire when m...

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adjusting

I'm not normally a joiner, but I am a little desperate (okay, maybe more than a little) - I got my pacemaker on April 15th and was told the battery life is 10 - 12 years - I went to my first check on May 8th and the readout says - 4.50-6.25 years - I find this disconcerting at best - how can I conserve on the battery? I am 47 years old and freaked out by the quick drain of the battery - I am worried what it's going to say in a couple of weeks when I return to the doctor - any advice will be appr...

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well good news I hope!!!!!!

Well this has been a day!!!!! Mom calls me this afternoon to let me know they are GOING TO PUT IN DADS NEW PACEMAKER, well folks let me tell you, its about TIME! Earlier today mom calls me from hospital and said that dad had lung infection, well I thought great 1 step forward 2 steps back it seems . All I could think about is daddy getting really tired , losing weight more and more and I was reallly scared that he was just going to give up. It seem when things began to look-up something els...

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battery life

hi everyone
can anyone tell me how i can get the current state/life of my battery. i have a st judes entity pacemaker that was implanted five and a half years ago. at present i am waiting to have the pm repositioned due to it moving and causing severe pain and limited movement. i am having the surgery at a different hospital to where i have my pacemaker checks. the consultant doing the surgery asked me to get a pm check and find out how long the battery life is left i.e. three months or tw...

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MORE INFO ON NEW BATTERY

Ther is more technical information on the principle of Bio-Tharmal batteries . If you type in google the following.
geocities thermoelectric modules
and secondly ,also previously mentioned
Bio-Thermal Battery for ICDs
Also if ElectricFrank reads this can you send me an email as I wish to send you a file. Sorry frank cant find your email address. Cheers Peter

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Battery running low

A friend of mine is due for a new pm in Sept/08. She has been short of breath for some months and has been checked out. Supposedly she is ok. Well, I was wondering if there is a possibility that when your pm battery is reaching the end of it's life, if it can cause any problems, like sob. Could the pm not be functioning as well as it should? These may be dumb questions but I'm willing to risk it. lol......
tia

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Help.. Batteries need to drain

Hello everyone,
We have just joined this forum.. My sister, mother, and I have been trying so hard to learn about pacemakers/defib. since a year ago when our dad/husband had to have one put in.. Since then we changed drs... and have recently found out that the one put in was to small.. now we have to have it replaced.. However, we can't have this done until the batteries are drained down... this is what we were told.. When the dr turned the batteries up to 86%(which was the highest it would...

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my lead has slipped!what next?

I have been feeling crappy for about a week,and had my pacemaker checked today.Apparently,my ventricular lead has migrated to the atrium.They are going to replace it next wek.What does that involve?I'm scared to death!

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Replacement

Had a St Jude pacemaker for five years now and have annual checkups to see how the P M battery is coping
My Question is: - what exactly do they check? And how do they know when to change the P M
I am fully dependant on the little devil and the thought of having a new PM is starting to become urgent

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Leads gone bad?

I am a 59 yr old woman, born with a hole in my heart and a leaky pulmonary valve. I had surgery when I was 9 which seemed to correct my problems. However, in 1991 I started experiencing different sypmtoms. I had always had a very slow heart rate but it slowed even more to the point of my nearly fainting. I also have AF which I am in most of the time and because of it I have had many tias. All my valves are somewhat leaky but on the bright side, my cholesterol is very good and my arteries ar...

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Lead Extraction Recovery

To anyone who has had leads extracted. Can you tell me your recovery time and share your experience with me? I posted awhile back asking exactly what a lead extraction is and thanks to those that replied! Now really looking for how long it took to get back to work and feeling normal again.
I will be having 4 leads removed from my upper chamber within the next month. Does it depend on how many are being taken out and how they are removed?

Thanks in advance-
Tracie

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Battery Change and AV Node Ablation

Hi,
This is a great site and hopefully some has some insight re: my question.
My family member has a Biventricular pacemaker and ICD, placed in 2002. Anyway, the battery is up for replacement, but in the meantime my family member has also had an av node ablation (as such pacemaker dependent).
Does anyone know how they change the battery/unit while still keeping the heart paced? Has anyone else had a similar replacement?? I would appreciate any comments.

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Change of Batteries

I was told at my last reading that batteries are getting low. Is the changing of batteries a big deal? What kind of recovery? I have a Lawn Care Svc....will I be limited in working?

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Surgery to Remove leads/tomorrow


I have had my pacemaker since 2000 - my pacemaker dislodged in December - it is now infected and I am in so much discomfort. I am having sugery TOMORROW - my doctor (NYC) is removing the pacemaker and leads, I also have excessive scar tissue and he will use the laser to "clean it up" - He is putting in a new pacemaker on the right side. Does anyone know how long the surgery will take ? I found a site and read that to remove a lead takes 2-4 hours!!!!! the discomfort after the surgery cann...

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maybe not mad!

Hi Karen, Thanks for that. It's due for replacement later this week. Am having an dual chamber 'symphony' my ela.

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Am I going mad?

I've had my ela pacemaker for about six years. A few weeks ago I was told the battery was running down and that I need a replacement within 8 weeks. At that time i had absolutely no symptoms. About two weeks later I started getting lots of palpitations, felt absolutely exhausted all the time and began to get short of breath on minimal exertion. The pacing technician that these symptoms wouldn't be to do with the pm because the need to change is always spotted months in advance of becoming sy...

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Battery drain questions...

Hello everyone,

As a relative "newbie"... I have a question about the batteries and how the charge in them gets used... I am pretty much clueless about the science so technical answers are likely to go way over my head!

I am under the impression if we walk through a security system, etc. and it affects our pacemaker ~ our pacemakers are designed to re-set themselves and return to "normal". We also have periodic checkups and sometimes the settings are changed. So my quest...

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NEW BIO-THERMAL BATTERY

There is a new battery that is being developed for pacemakers which will enable pacemakers to last at least 30 years even in ICDs. Although there are a number of avenues being persued on the battery life front to replace the Lithium Iodine battery, I am convinced that this is the one that will win the day and give electrophysiologists a bit of an easier life. The new battery under developement is called a Bio-Thermal battery and works by taking advantage of the temperature differential/gradient...

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twitch fixed for now

i had my icd implanted feb. 18. i returned to heart lab march 18 because 1 of 3 leads in heart had moved. the ep doc opened up the incision, removed one lead and replaced it with a lead from a different company. (i have a st. jude unit and now have a boston scientific lead).
i went back for a 2-week checkup and told the ep doc that i was experiencing a "twitch" on the left side of my stomach. he said i had a diaphram fibulation? the tech people worked on the settings for more than an hour....

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Lead to the atrium come adrift

Hi folks. Thanks for reading this. My name is Matt - I'm a professor in engineering at Stanford University. My dad is 78 years old and lives in South Africa. One month ago, he received a pacemaker called Zephyr, Model 5820 IS1, made by St Jude. He's been experiencing ongoing irregularities in his heart beat and it now seems that one lead to the atrium has come adrift. Apparently, this was more likely since he had bypass surgery ten years ago so his atrium is smaller than usual and has scar tissu...

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