About PM manuals

• by LuCas
• 2013-07-19 11:07:16
• General Posting
• 1017 views
• 4 comments

I know now that I am not alone in this area of being almost totally unaware of my PM functions and programming.

First of all, I would like to thank all the kind members who gave me precious advice.

Thanks donr. I appologize for not searching the site more carefully because the information was there. Well, now I have lots of things to read over the weekend (I live in the extreme south of Brazil and we are in Winter. Temperature is -4ºC in some cities here. So, why leave the comfort of home if we have PM manuals to read LOLŠ?
(get used to my sense of humourŠ).

To Cabg Patch I would say that I received a booklet with very general information. On the site of the Fundacao de Cardiologia de Sao Paulo (Cardiology Foundation of the City of Sao Paulo, Brazil) I found much more detailed information when I needed than with that manual provided by St Jude Medical, which is my device manufacturer.
I think that patients who are interested in details, this makes life easier because we have ideas to discuss with our doctor. I a€™m lucky that I have an extraordinary cardiologist who assists me. We have longer discussions about diseases and he is the kind of professional who loves his profession and is always giving me precious advice.

And yes, people are different.

I thank Golden_snitch for the nice and interesting comment. You a€™re right. If we a€™re not engineers, some very specific details will not help much. But, if we understand how our artificial sensors work, we can help doctors to discuss issues together with us. For example, I have just learned that many things can be programmed. In my case, I asked my physician to slow the hr a bit so that I could sleep well. But now, I have also learned that the rest mode or sleep mode of 55bpm will jump to 75bpm when I move. But did you know (if your divice allows that) that we can programme how fast the heart will respond? How many movements should I make to make the device understand€ that I want to change from 55 to 75bpm? Then cames the programming. The EP can programme the device to be more or less sensitive to movement. If we understand that, we can decide if a high or low sensitivity is what is good for us. In my case, I wi€™ll ask my physician to set the device a little more sensitive, if possible, when the device needs to change from 55 to 75bpm. On the other hand, I do not want the device to be sensitive to the contrary. I a€™m a translator and stay longer time in front of a computer, reading and writing. On Sunday afternoon, I was checking emails and suddenly I felt something strange, as if my pressure was dropping fast. I asked my wife to give me the pressure monitor and guest what? The heart beat was 55 in the afternoon. I got worried because my doctor had programmed the rest mode for 11 P.M. (23:00). When I went to see my physician, I commented about that. You know what? He told me about a dynamic€ or €œstatic€ sleep modes, if I a€™m not mistaken. Mine was set to automatic, which means that my heart rate will go down to 55 at any time of the day or night if I don't move to a certain amount of time. Is it good or bad, depends on lifestyle. With that information, I now ask myself "how about longer drives?" Maybe it is not advisable for me to travel and drive at night.
This "sleep mode" information was not in the booklet that I received when I left the hospital. If I did not know about that, maybe I would feel discomfort to sleep just because I did not negociate a different setting for my pacemaker with the physician.

Again, the member golden_snitch was right when said €œwe need not forget that there are in fact quite a lot of patients who do not wish to know all the details, and there are also patients who never experience any problems with their pacemaker, so that there's not really a reason for them to learn what their settings are.€

Another interesting issue that arose was should the patient receive the detailed manual?
I think yes, and it is curious that Germany would not allow their German pacemaker receipients to have the device manual. Very curious.

Cabg Patch compared the situation as a car manual. Yes, we understand that certain specific detail of how to remove a nut from a car part is not our job (unless you are a mechanic). But we all know that we could easily protect our lives in situations like €œfunny, I feel I need to press the brake pedal harder to stop the car. Is it the brake fluid which is low and leaking?€. Some people will say €œI don'€™t know what is going on with my car and other people will say €œI think that the problem is€. Both positions should be respected, but it is nice to know things.

I thank all of you for reading this huge post and thank you for all your wonderful comments. Now, I'€™ll read the material that donr indicated me.
Lucio Castro (LuCas)