Hi all

Hi All, newbee just saying hello looks a really great site i have an ICD fitted in 2009 and got my first shock 2 weeks ago talk about a bolt from the blue lol. my defib tried to pace 3 times and failed so initiated a shock heart was in ventricular tachycardia all happened so quick felt sick,very dizzy ,blacked out and bang felt i had been hit in the chest with a lump hammer guess it did its job tho still here.They said the dfib has only been pacing at 30%dont know what that means or if that is normal they have disabled the pacing for a week to see how my natural pacing goes then they will put new settings in, that was last week so have to send them an interrogation today on the home monitor been feeling like crap since the shock a lot of dizzy spells even at rest just sitting and fluttering and palputations in the chest dont know if this is normal reaction aftershock if anyone can shed any light would be greatful look forward to speaking to all. Tony

3 Comments

Thanks

by Tonycovo - 2012-09-21 08:09:05

Thanks for the welcome Frank yes i was taken by emergency ambulance to the nearest hospital they did all the checks on arrival ecg,bloods, chest xray,download off my icd,they kept me in ccu and did the 12hr bloods and kept me for a further 12 hrs for observation then let me go home. I contacted my consultant next day i was feeling really crap they told me to come in to see them when they did a download of the icd. my HF nurse said it was ventricular fibrillation lucky i had the icd in, im waiting for the results of the interrogation i sent off my home monitor yesterday, they said icd has been pacing at 30%of the time but it also had a VRR activated ?? which they turned off last week so they can assess my % of pacing and reset. It is a great device the ambulance took about 10 min to get to me so it did its job for me. Speak again soon Tony.

Thanks for the update

by ElectricFrank - 2012-09-21 11:09:09

Hope all settles down for you. I'm glad to hear you got the attention you needed.

best wishes,
frank

Welcome

by ElectricFrank - 2012-09-21 12:09:29

That is a scary experience. It would have been a lot worse without the ICD.

Did they have you in the hospital for any tests after the original event? If it happened here in the states it would be hard to get out of the hospital for several days. The feelings you experienced of sick,very dizzy ,and black out are pretty much classic of total arrest or vfib. It all goes pretty fast when blood flow stops.

Something that bothers me is the way they have come to depend on the ICD for routine handling of things like this. The original idea was to keep the person alive until they can get to medical attention.

frank

You know you're wired when...

Your old device becomes a paper weight for your desk.

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