How reliable are pacemakers?

I had septal ablation 2 days ago and now have complete heart block. They tried taking me off of the temporary pacemaker 4 times and I flatlined every time.

I'm worried now that I'm completely dependent, my pacemaker could fail and I'll die within minutes.

Anyone know how reliable they are? Anyone else TOTALLY dependent?

6 Comments

not gonna happen

by Tracey_E - 2016-04-10 03:04:56

When they turned it off, did they leave it off for more than a few seconds? I'm guessing not. Odds are, your heart would have kicked in.

They do not fail. We see all sorts of complications and rare cases come through here, and in the 5+ years I've been a regular here, I've never once heard of one failing completely. Worst case, if they malfunctioned, they have a back up mode that will keep you going at a steady rate until it can be fixed. At the end when it's time for a new battery, there are two modes that let us know it's coming, each lasts approx 3 months so there's a 6 month cushion. I'm on my 5th one and never gone past the first mode. They are high tech computers designed to save lives, they are extremely dependable.

Once the heart gets used to being paced and as you heal from the ablation, almost everyone develops some type of intrinsic base rate so flatlining now doesn't mean you would flatline without it in a few weeks. It may not feel good or be very fast, but something will be there. When they turn my pacer off- never for more than a few seconds!- my rate has been anywhere from 20 to 60. I've been paced every beat since 1994, no scares, no complications. I found that as I healed and got back to being active, I started to trust it more and think about it less and less. I hope you find the same thing.

Dependency

by NiceNiecey - 2016-04-10 07:04:32

Hi Microscope.

Although I didn't start out completely dependent on my PM, I am now. Paced 100%.

I've learned here that even if one is paced 100% of the time - like we are - it doesn't necessarily mean that if your device was turned off that your heart would stop. It just wouldn't work as well as it does when the PM is doing its job.

I have grown to appreciate my pacemaker. I am so thankful for the technology that keeps us tickin'!

Another way of looking at it

by IAN MC - 2016-04-10 08:04:35

Have you always worried that you have been TOTALLY dependent on your heart. Maybe your heading should have been " How reliable are hearts ? "

Your heart could have failed and you would have been dead within minutes.

Life is too short to worry about all of the things that our lives depend on e.g. hearts, lungs, blood, livers, kidneys ,car brakes, aircraft engines,un-contaminated water ,asteroids, Kim Jong-un ------- to name just a few

Best wishes for a long technology-assisted life

Ian

beating

by Tracey_E - 2016-04-10 10:04:16

If they've killed your av node, then the atria is still beating but it's no longer sending signals to the ventricles. I was born this way. The ventricles will almost always eventually kick in with what they call an idionodal rhythm, which in simpler terms means it beats whenever it feels like it rather when the atria tells it to. If you are being monitored, they will not wait more than a few seconds of flatline before pacing you. People not paced can sometimes have very long pauses before the heart kicks in again, I've heard of up to 30 seconds. But they weren't about to let you go that long just to see how long it would take your heart to kick in, that would have been irresponsible. Just because they didn't wait doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened.

They wouldn't have used a defib, they would have used an external pacemaker that attaches with big sticky pads until they could do a temporary pacer through the carotid. Not painful and ambulances carry them. It's what they use on me during replacements since my base rate is so low. Debfibrillating is for when the heart goes into a dangerous rhythm to get it to reset or when it stops and won't restart.

100% paced here

by SaraTB - 2016-04-10 11:04:29

My av node was ablated accidentally too, which was a bit disappointing :). Turns out, it's more common than we think.
I am now pacer-dependent, having complete heart block: as Tracey says though, my brain sends the correct signal to the atria, it's just that the av node can't pass the message on to the ventricles. So the PM fills in the gap in communications. I think of is as like an orchestra conductor: it makes sure the ventricles are keeping time with the atria. If not, stuff still happens, just pretty discordantly and uncomfortably, but blood's still getting passed around. Not well, but enough that in the extraordinarily unlikely event of an issue, I'll make it alive to a hospital.
Do I worry about it? No. I wondered vaguely, at the beginning, found this forum, and was very reassured! And they didn't even use an external pacemaker during the replacement procedure when I got the second one.

It's scary at first, but the more you learn from other members here, the more you'll get comfortable with it. Most days, I don't remember I have a PM.

Thanks

by microscopes1 - 2016-04-10 11:04:56

Thank you everyone.

Tracey - What makes you think my heart would have kicked in? (I hope you're right)

Reason I ask. There was a scare that one of my leads (dual chamber pace) was coming out, and they had to bring me back into the OR to fully re-attach. They said if it had come out, they would have had to continuously defibrillate me externally (painful!) while the cardiac team threaded a temporary pacemaker through my coroted artery down to my heart.

You know you're wired when...

Your pacemaker interferes with your electronic scale.

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