Another jumping pacemaker

• by ajp
• 2015-03-20 12:03:08
• General Posting
• 1207 views
• 4 comments

Another jumping pacemaker
Comment posted by ajp on 2015-03-20 12:46.
Two years ago, my St Jude pacemaker began literally jumping in my chest. You could actually see the pacemaker hopping up and down under the skin. This began this as I was getting up from a chair and turning off the TV. I had been watching televison (led 40 inch Samsung) from a distance of about 4 feet. There were no induction coils, magnetic devices or other tools or appliances operating nearby.
The homes exterior electrical panel was located on the wall about 10 feet from whre was sitting.
I went to the ER. The pacemaker was still jumping when I arrived.
My heart rate had risen rapidly from 60 BPM to about 85 BPM. The heart beat was fluctuating at a peculiar rythm: 2 quick beats then two slow beats. The ER called the St Jude technician who arrived in about 45 minutes. She had never seen anything like (nor had the ER med personnel) Well into hour 2 of this experience, the tech finally got someone at St Jude to tell her to turn off the pacemaker and reprogram it. She did and within about fifteen minutes she had the pm operating normally. The tech and I both reported the problem to the FDA and St Jude. I filled out the report form twice on the FDA website. I received a confirmation from the FDA that they had gotten the report. Despite numerous inquiries, I did not hear from them again. Neither did the Tech. I saw her a week ago and she said nothing had ever come of the incident report and that it was only time she had ever had seen a jumping pacemaker that lost its prograrm without any kind of obvious environmental cause. The pacemaker was "undamanged" the leads to the heart stayed in place and are in good shape. The device passed its last test a month ago still in "perfect conditiion." ?????