Pacemaker Club: getting battery change

getting battery change

by abha
2015-04-01 12:04:36
Batteries & Leads
1427 views
2 comments

I am going for battery change for the first time, after 5 years. can someone tell about the latest ones in the market with good battery life and lesser failures? will a change of the pacemaker itself prolong battery life? I have a medtronic system fitted...

2 Comments

Guy sitting next to me

by Theknotguy - 2015-04-01 08:04:03

Guy sitting next to me in church has a PM. We joke about sitting together and synching our PM's. He was coming up to the 9th year on his previous PM a week ago Sunday and was plotting the battery voltage to see where he was in the life cycle. Battery went to 2 volts and he was having problems getting dizzy.

Turns out the old PM would only pace in the atrium when the voltage dropped to 2 volts. On that Sunday he said he'd have to have a discussion with our EP as we go to the same person.

This Sunday I asked how it was going. He'd gotten a new PM on Tuesday. In and out, local to kill the pain in the PM area and a twilight drug to knock him out. Was in hospital about 3 hours, went grocery shopping on the way home. (Not a good idea.)

Old PM was Medtronic, new PM is Medtronic. Old PM lasted 9 years. New PM to last 10 with all the extra stuff it has to do. Says he will be 100 at his next PM change and I think he's going to make it.

Didn't get too much more info as he was going dancing with his wife Sunday night because he felt so much better.

Hope things go well for you.

batteries

by Tracey_E - 2015-04-01 09:04:15

They replace the whole device, not just the battery.

Battery life is more about how you use it than the device itself. Talk to ten people with the same device and they'll all have different battery life.

None of them fail! Recalls are few and far between and there are currently none out there with recalls that are being put in new. Leads are more likely to have a recall than pm's themselves.