Defective Medtronic Kappa 700 Pacemaker

I had a pacemaker implanted back in 2001. For the most part I felt fine up until late 2008. This is when I started noticing little twitches under my pacemaker. These started slow and light and by the end of 2009 it full blown shocking me under and around my pacemaker. Finally the doctors decided to remove it in November of 2009 somewhat relieving me of the painful shocks. At the time I was never told anything about my pacemaker before or after it was removed only that it had defaulted in me. Just recently I had found that the FDA had released a Class 1 Recall for Medtronic Kappa 600/700/900 series pacemakers back in 2009. My pacemaker was KDR733 so it fell into this class.

I was just wondering if other Kappa 700/600/900 or Sigma 100/200/300 Series Pacemaker Recipients have or are going through something like this. It feels like I'm alone in this and really don't know where to turn from here? Any information is good information. Thanx in advance.

1 Comments

Doubt it's the device

by PacerRep - 2013-09-20 12:09:01

That recall was an internal issue on the kappa, the battery could become disconnected from it's ground and fail to output a pulse. This would just cause the pacemaker not to pace. Your issue sounds like you had an insulation failure on one of your leads. It makes sense, it was in 8 years and progressively got worse. The insulation begins to wear down over time and exposes the inner wires, the pacemaker is delivering energy down that lead. When the outer layer breaks, that energy leaks into the body, it just so happens yours was probably near your pectoral muscle and it was stimulating it.

Obviously I haven't seen your evidence so I don't know for sure, but this is what it sounds like to me with your description.

You know you're wired when...

You have an excuse for being a couch potato.

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