12-weeks post implant, dual chamber Medtronic PM

• by Pacemaker_Sally
• 2020-01-21 15:00:23
• Checkups & Settings
• 1046 views
• 2 comments

Many thanks to everyone's posts that provided so much great information about checkups and settings! Today was an 'extra' 12-week checkup to see how the 'problem' right ventricular lead is doing.

- the sensing of the problem lead is still at 2 milliVolts, but stable and not getting worse or better
- the brand new Medtronic pacemaker is highly programmable and has 12 different programmable sensitivity settings
- I am currently on the 3rd lowest sensitivity setting, with 2 lower settings available in case they are needed in the future.
- The criteria for replacing the lead would be that we are on the lowest setting.

Given this information, they are confident that the lead will meet my needs. And technology is continually improving, so if the lead needs to be replaced in the future, there might be better methods than currently available

The nurse today was great - she shared all the information she had with me and did not minimize anything. She actually showed me all the programming sensitivity threholds and which one I was on.

Thank you to whomever posted recently about asking them to program a minimum 'sleeping rate'. My 'sleeping rate' is now 50 BPM and the 'day time rate' remains at a minimum 60 BPM. This last period, I was being paced 20% atrially and <1% ventricularly (for swallow syncope). I have started to feel really great and have noticably much more energy!

So I am now on a 6 month recall (instead of 1 year) and feel that my concerns have been addressed. I'm looking forward to settling in and being much more care free!!!