EMF from Music Speakers

not impossible

by Tracey_E - 2018-12-21 15:54:59

It's unlikely but not impossible that the magnets in the speakers were large enough and close enough to get your pacer to switch modes. Do you have a home monitor? If so, do a download. It will tell if it happened. I suspect it did not because usually we'd have to be 6" away from it, and the magnets would be there whether the speakers were playing a song or not. 

POSSIBLE

by Grateful and blessed - 2018-12-21 23:37:41

hi,

i was at a concert a couple of months ago and found myself very sensitive to the rumbling and vibration of the music. I don’t know if it is down to the magnets in the speakers or not but I feel like the vibration definitely does something to remind one that they have a pacemaker. I definitely felt the same thing. 

Vibration?

by El Gordo - 2018-12-22 19:34:50

Could it be vibration causing the accelerometer inside your pacemaker to think you're more active?  When I dive into the water my heart rate takes off for a couple of seconds, and I think it's from my shoulder hitting the water. It's disconcerting.

Vibration

by Gotrhythm - 2018-12-23 14:03:15

EMF fields, even very strong ones, drop off rapidly with distance. I'd tend to go with the vibration theory. My St Jude pacemaker assumes I need a faster heartrate when it senses vibration. 

Since the accelerometer was made more sensitive (which helps a lot with dancing) I notice even vibration from loud music will causes a speed up. The other day listening to six drummers in a drum circle (very loud) I could feel my heart going with the drums. I can assure you the totally human powered drums were emitting no EMF. When I realized what was happening, the effect was kind of cool--like I was getting a little extra lift from the drums.

You might want to ask your doc what kind of accellerometer your pacemaker has.

my experience

by Uelrindru - 2018-12-23 16:22:50

I just went into a best buy that was blasting music from very big speakers. I stayed away but had an immediate low sugar response.(I'm also diabetic) it was so weird I didnt catch it at first. I have no idea what happened but it was definitely wierd.

distance

by dwelch - 2018-12-24 09:35:55

The magnet strength is not going to change with or without music.  It is a fixed magnet, yes there is a coil that does change and fights the magnet...true...

So 1) the magnet itself for good bookshelf size speakers on up is strong enough if placed over the device to put it in battery test mode.  This would set your pacer to some speed in the 60s or 70s lets say, but I dont have a chart for every device to know exactly.  Not going to set it to race your heart. 

2) The field drops off by one over the distance squared, surphace of a spere thing (didnt think you would need math after school was over did you).  so 2 feet away is 4 times weaker than 1 foot not half as weak.  I used to work somewhere where we had a shake table, huge coil tied to a big chunk of aluminum you would secure items to it and it would shake them to see if they could survive (in our case stuff that would launch into space on a launch vehicle).  We rented a good meter and I would have to hug the thing to have a high enough field to worry about.  And the "worry" is it confuses the device and you might pass out, but then you would let go and fall out of the field then be fine. 

3) the vibration/activity thing is an interesting angle on this, not believing it though the frequency is too high, explain how you would be doing some normal exercise, jogging, tennis, soccer, etc that would vibrate the device with that high of a frequency, small of a period?  Your body itself resists that vibration, you are the padding that prevents smaller items within to be directly affected.  Now I would expect everyone, pacer or not, to feel some strangeness when dealing with concert level sound, depends on the concert and the venue if that means inches away or 100 feet away, been to indoor concerts that you can feel from a long way away. 

4) take your pulse, you think you are being affected, take your pulse, FOR A FULL MINUTE, no shortcuts. Is it outside your normal, normal for that activity.  Go outside with one of your non-paced friends, settle, both take your pulse, both go back inside stand in front of that speaker and take your pulse there.  Is it really changing if so is it only you or everyone?  Remember that you can easily raise your rate mentally, fear or concern can drive your rate up as easily as something non-mental.  Somehow need to account for that, somewhere I heard or read that counting helps. so counting for a minute by the end may by itself unfocus the concern.

5) Listen to Tracey, if your device records events of concern then a check will show that.  If you are 7 weeks, did you have your first follow up visit in the office?  They can check then, if not you maybe have one in (math...) 4 months...(6 months after surgery) some docs dont do that and go for a year.  If they go a year though its probably because you have a home monitor which as Tracey points out you can use to see if anything happened worth noting.  If your appointment is not for a number of months write down the day this happened so that if there is a peak recorded then you can correlate it to this event.  I find that if I have events logged I generally dont remember anything worth nothing when it supposedly happened.  But I have 30 years of pacing and kinda know when things are off, if ever...