St Jude Merlin Home Monitor

To those members who reside in Australia, who have a Merlin home monitor please take note.

Last week I was admitted via A&E to hospital with erratic heart rates, high blood pressure obviously pretty high anxiety and everything else that goes with thinking you are dying. When the A&E doctor interviewed me lying wired up to monitors etc, I was asked what company my pacemaker was from, St Jude came back the reply and a call was placed to St Jude in Sydney to get a tech out to read my pacemaker to see what was and had happened. Well, the reply from St Jude floored nearly everyone in A&E, NO! they wouldn't send anyone out to read my pacemaker because I was on home monitoring and they don't do hospital visits if you are on home monitoring. Just great, somethings happenning in there, but what? Despite a heated argument between doctor and St Jude, no one showed.

Then my cardiologist tried, same response! So upstairs to the CCU I went for 3 days to be 'monitored'. On finally seeing my cardiologist and asking the question why they wouldn't come out, I was told that I am monitored via Merlin for Atrial Fibrillation ( I had an ablation last year for that and I have been told at my clinic checks that only two episodes 'AF' of less than a minute each have ever been detected in that year) and nothing else, but that negates me of hospital emergency readings etc.

So here I am, still experiencing 'funny' rythmns and sensations with a clinic visit scheduled for another 2 weeks to 'read' my pacemaker and finally see what the hell it is that I am experiencing. Thoughts are going through my head that if this is what a home monitor does for you in times of emergency, then why I have I got the home monitoring! Sure, it might pick up something when I'm next to the thing but do I want to stand in my bedroom all day and then if it is not in my case an Atrial Fib episode, the bloody thing won't report it anyway!

I guess if something did happen to me because of St Jude's inaction, a lawsuit would not be out of the question. Good luck fellow Australian St Jude Home monitor patients.

2 Comments

Monitor

by inch - 2017-04-15 19:39:50

I have a St Jude monitor.  St Jude is now owned by Abbot (spelling)  Mine is a ICD for v fib but i also have atrial fib.   If i think my device has gone off i call st jude, speak to a tech and they will guide you through the steps to down load your device then.  tell them how you feel, and or when the feeling occured.  they will send results on to your cardio md.  my tech told me there were not events.  I had gotten up too fast to go urinate took two steps toward the bathroom and fell flat on my face.  I knew i was un wise to get up so fast but what happened most likely was orthostatic hypotension....... i dropped my blood pressure and boom i fell.  but i was assured from st jude that it was not my icd pacemaker shocking me.          

St Jude Merlin Home Monitor

by aussieray - 2017-04-16 02:16:00

Thanks for the reply Inch, seems like there may be a huge difference between the U.S. and what we get in Australia. I had enough trouble even talking to  a technical person when I had to set up my home monitor, then the power pack blew up and trying to get a replacement took 3 weeks and many phone calls. So the service we are obviously provided over here must be pretty bad in comparison. The technical people that interrogate my pacemaker on most occasions are really helpful, except for one who is assigned to the cardiology clinic I go to every 6 months for checks, I have a problem with my pacer where I feel the self test the unit does each night at the same time and it annoys me intensely. Will the tech turn it off, No way! They reckon by turning it off it will cost me two years of battery life! Now myself being an ex tech, I find that a bit hard to believe, that turning a function off will cost me battery life??? As for them reading the data and sending it through to my clinic, that is a good question, I have never been told anything and I still don't know if that green and white thing sitting there actually does anything or is just taking up space.

Thanks again for the response, take care of yourself.

You know you're wired when...

You name your daughter “Synchronicity”.

Member Quotes

I am a 58 year old woman, race cars, ski at 13,000+ feet, work out daily, have become a second-degree black-belt in Karate, run a business - no limitations.