Anti tachycardia pacing

Hi,
I had a Medtronic XT DR D354DRG implanted nearly 4 weeks ago. The anti-tachycardia pacing cut-in today at 150bpm and worked fine. I was able to tell that my HR was high but couldnt "feel" any pacing going on just that my HR dropped. My heart feels sore/bruised though. Is this common?
I feel relieved that this pacing worked and I didnt get to defib!
Just for interest I live in the UK and all my treatment and the device is "free" although like everyone else in the UK who has worked we do pay for it by means of a small deduction made from our salaries (called National Insurance) and this cover continues after retirement. I have been very dismayed to read how much people in other countries - the USA in particular - have to pay if they do not have insurance and if you do not have the $ you dont get. Very sad.

20 Comments

Insurance in US

by TalkinCardio - 2012-08-04 03:08:16

Well, we have a choice of doctors and hospitals if we are fortunate enough to be able to afford health insurance.

I think it's a disgrace that so many people here in the US cannot get the health care they need.
Cathy

Germany

by golden_snitch - 2012-08-04 04:08:07

In Germany we have a similar system to that in the UK, and we DO have a choice. It's European Union law that you are free to chose your doctor/hospital, and from next year on I could even travel abroad (within the EU) for surgery and my German insurance has to cover it. UK's NHS is stricter than insurances in Germany, and you have to wait longer for appointments, tests etc., but at least everyone has health insurance and no one is turned away. Health insurance is mandatory, and if you can't pay for it when you're unemployed for instance, the social security system will cover it. Now, the system can only cover it, because everyone who has a job pays a deduction of his/her salary - that's solidarity. With your deduction you also help others who are not that fortunate, and then if you should one day become sick, lose your job etc., you will be helped, too. That's how it works, and it works well!

All those stories from U.S. members who worry about costs of their pacer, about insurance and so on make me sad. No one should have to worry about if he can afford a pacer/battery change or not. It's already enough that you have a health issue, that you have a sick heart.

Best
Inga

Snitch / John

by IAN MC - 2012-08-05 01:08:41

My apologies also for going off-topic. Your heart shouldn't feel sore / bruised; I hope you get it sorted

Best wishes

Ian

Snitch/Ian

by john1945 - 2012-08-05 07:08:18

Thank you. I am due for my first check soon so will raise it with them. They are also going to give me a remote monitoring unit which sounds interesting!
kind regards
John

European v USA Healthcare

by IAN MC - 2012-08-05 07:08:58

zwakenberg ; I don't think John has got the wrong impression about US healthcare. It is evident from reading posts on here that your system is great if you have money; it is rubbish if you haven't .

I share John and Inga's sadness at the worry caused by financial considerations for many US heart patients who contribute to this forum. We are very fortunate in Europe in not having to worry at all about costs and payment.

What made me feel even sadder was a discussion I had with a group of well-off, largely Republican, Americans when I was in the US recently. I initiated a discussion on healthcare and the pervading view appeared to be that if you can't afford medical insurance, it is somehow your fault. Everybody should stand on their own feet etc etc.

As long as selfish, naive attitudes like that prevail then the US system will never improve.

Ian

Add

by golden_snitch - 2012-08-05 09:08:14

But this is not the place to discuss politics.When I have the feeling that people don't understand how our or most of the European health care systems work, and think, for instance, that we have no free choice of doctors, I need to explain to them and correct them.

Universal health care

by golden_snitch - 2012-08-05 09:08:47

Hi Ian,

I had the same kind of discussions when I visited friends in the U.S. last year. I still don't understand how anyone can argue that your rights are somehow curtailed when health insurance is being made mandatory. I think your right to live is curtailed when you cannot get into health insurance, when you have no means to afford it and are therefore denied help.
And regarding choice: All my friends in the U.S. have health insurance, and their insurance dictates where they can go/which doctor they can see and which not. They all have lists of doctors, and if you want to see someone who's not on the list, you have to pay for it yourself. A friend of mine needs a lead removal, and the only doctor her health plan would pay says that he hardly ever does any lead extractions, so has not much experience and would rather not do it. What a great choice!

I also remember being told every so often, as a response to my explanation of our universal health care system: Yeah, but Germany is a socialist country! Well, apparently there is a lack of knowledge of the difference between socialism and a universal health care system in a social market economy/welfare state.

Inga

asfasfasf

by boxxed - 2012-08-05 10:08:12

ATP typically paces at max output or close. So it can be somewhere around 5-8V. Typical pacing if the leads are chronically well-positioned is 1-3V. You may be noticing that.

Sorry

by john1945 - 2012-08-05 10:08:15

Hi,
Sorry I didnt mean to cause any problems with my post and I hope I havent offended anyone.

To get back to my original post re my heart feeling sore/bruised after anti tachyardia pacing - has anyone experience of this. The feeling had gone when I woke up this morning.

Sorry

by golden_snitch - 2012-08-05 11:08:26

Sorry, John, I got carried away.
I don't have an ICD, only a pacer, but a friend of mine does, and she says that she feels the anti-tachycardia pacing when it happens, but she has never mentioned feeling sore or bruised afterwards. If I were you I'd mention it at the next check-up. Maybe the voltage (amplitude) is too high? I could imagine that you could end up feeling sore when the heart receives a stimulus so strong that it's almost as if you were being shocked. But that's just a guess.
Best wishes
Inga

Thanks

by john1945 - 2012-08-06 12:08:51

Thank you boxxed. My knowledge increases

Freedom first

by ILoominatedEKG - 2012-08-07 07:08:42

I got my PM for free in the Veterans Administration. They are contractually obligated to provide care according to the enlistment document I signed when I joined risking life and limb for the rest of the country's freedom. But I would gladly rip the the damned thing out of my chest and die under a bridge if I could just have my freedoms back from the USSA.I would rather be dead than live in Hillary's distopic village. And I would much rather kill off all of the socialists than die myself. Maybe it's time for another civil war. Socialism is the disfunctional self serving wishful thinking of short sighted, narrow minded, emotinally stilted and immature prima donna morons who fancy themselves enlightened.

IAN..always an insight...

by Tattoo Man - 2012-08-08 08:08:29

This Forum is a fantastic opportunity for so many to express t hier feelings and views on such a fantastic range of opinions and very different attitudes towards the issues that we all deal with on a daily basis

I'm a softie , generally speaking...but here..I'mwith IAN

Loominated....get medication

Your country does not need more people in shopping malls with hand connons

This Forum does old fashioned love / concern...do you want in ..or ..out..?

TM

ILoominated

by IAN MC - 2012-08-08 08:08:38


.. So, you "would rather kill off the socialists". Bearing in mind the crazy gun laws that you have in the US, I would rather you were locked up. You need psychiatric help !

Ian

Exerpt from the Communist Manifesto

by ILoominatedEKG - 2012-08-08 08:08:58

Your comment could be an exerpt from the communist manifesto - call anyone opposing that idiotic philosophy criminal or crazy. The Nazi's did it too. So did Mussolini. In fact, just about every despot and tyrant in history has done that. You're in good company.

By the way, the second amendment is there just so people like me can fight off the oppression of people like you. The "crazy gun laws" you refered to are the desperate attempt of people like you the render people like me defenseless.

Not only do I hold my position, I challenge your personal integrity to take this conversation to it's LOGICAL conclusion (your cheap ad hominem attacks do not qualify as logic) unless you lack the intellect or fortitude to defend your untennable position.

Now, do you have any decent comment or argument to make about my comment, or does it suffice for you to spew commie propaganda?

Apologies to all on the Forum

by Tattoo Man - 2012-08-09 04:08:06

I really find this entertaining and , not a little worrying.
1..we have a gentleman here with an engageingly good use of the English language...this is often very persuasive...but not always. The use of block capitals unfortunately lessens reasonable arguement because it represents shouting in print..never elegant.

2..on a lighter note, I am sure that many have watched 'Men In Black 1'.. a very funny movie starring Will Smith, a most stylish man, not prone to shouting.All those kookie extraterrestrials masquerading as human beings seem so unlikely, dont they ?

3..I'm beginning to wonder if that film was actually a documentary

Just a thought.

I'll not be posting here for a while as I am travelling back in time with Genghis Khan to the planet Tharg.

Toodle-Pip

Tattoo Man

A message from both of us

by IAN MC - 2012-08-09 04:08:34

We have been in discussion and.have decided that we will ONLY offer you help regarding PM issues.

We cannot carry on our dialogue with you when you talk about stalking and killing people.

Tattoo Man / Ian Mc

A message to both of you

by ILoominatedEKG - 2012-08-09 09:08:27

Perhaps you should refrain from dialogue with any veteran. We are pretty much all trained to stalk and kill people for the sake of people like you.

Please do not forget you initiated this discussion propagating your socialist philosophy completely off topic. Now you want to name call and run when you have no intelligent argument.

I agree we have nothing to discuss. There are others on this board I am already in discussion wioth about my PM issues. But know well, I will not hesitate to counter the blight of socialism anywhere I find it.

Have a good life.

Illoominated

by IAN MC - 2012-08-09 10:08:00

The " crazy gun laws". which I referred to are the reason that your country has the highest level of gun-related homicides in the civilised world.

Have you ever been outside of the US ? Do you have a passport .? Have you ever been to Europe where we can safely walk in shopping malls without worrying that some nutter will pull out a gun ?

Have you taken your medication yet ?

Ian

Hypocracy

by ILoominatedEKG - 2012-08-09 12:08:20

I find it interesting that a person with an inordinate, unsubstantiated fear of being shot while shopping would hypocritically intimate that I need to be on medications. You have a gazillion times greater chance of dying from driving your car down the "safe" city street getting to the mall than of being shot in it. Hell, you have a greater chance of falling to your death in your bathtub (maybe society should remove that for you.......).

Further, you need have no fear of me psychotically stalking innocent people in a mall with a "hand cannon".
You need definitely fear me stalking people who want to further rape my natural rights (such as my sacro sanct right to defend myself and my civil rights and freedoms) in the street when the civil war breaks out. I would kill some of my own kin in order to garner freedom for the rest of them. I

f that threatens your childish world view, then perhaps you ought to open your closed little mind to the possibility that your short sighted, narrow minded, selfish, cowardly, inept, immature, irresponsible world view is raping millions of souls of those who do not maintain it. I can't speak for the rest of them, but I can tell you that I am sufficiently convicted to die or kill or order to stop you. You can call me all of the names you want. That won't stop the bullets.

And if you want me "neutralized" so that you can continue to play psychological Candyland, please have the fortitude to do it yourself and see that damage you do instead of letting some government employee do it for you. It's far too easy for deadly saber tooth socialists to pretend they are really just pussycats.

I came to this site in order to garner a little understanding of problems I am having with a pacemaker. But it would seem I must tolerate socialist indoctrination and propaganda in order to do so. Yet you have to audacity to call ME sick!

But good luck in Tharga Tat man. ANd get some meds for that paranoia Ian.

You know you're wired when...

You have a new body part.

Member Quotes

At age 20, I will be getting a pacemaker in few weeks along with an SA node ablation. This opportunity may change a five year prognosis into a normal life span! I look forward to being a little old lady with a wicked cane!