Newcomer

EMP

by sgmfish - 2024-10-04 21:58:23

There is a ton of misinformation about EMPs (mostly from folks who want to sell you a book). The bottom line is that indeed an EMP pulse can do a great deal of damage to electronics, BUT, and that is a big but, a small pulse (even an nuclear bomb) has to be rather close, or if at a distance, the pulse has to be huge. The scenario of a bad actor exploding a single atomic bomb high in the atomsphere and affecting a whole country in a significant way is gibberish.

EMPs are the least of your worries....trust me. You can remove it from your fear list :-)

Welcome fellow traveler on the journey!

by Lavender - 2024-10-04 23:10:34

I had 25 episodes of ventricular standstill before a thirty day monitor caught it on the tenth day of wearing it. The last two fainting spells included near death experiences which were very pleasant!  The last ventricular standstill was a 33 second pause. That got me my CRT-P in 2021. 

I live a normal life, very healthy and on no meds except vitamin d3 for sunlight and benefiber for my bowels. It took me about seven months to finally notice that my body and brain were adjusted to the pacemaker. 
 

You will probably worry about lots of things at first. But generally you're safe with almost everything except welding and strong magnets close to your pacemaker. Check your manufacturers recommendation for safety. There's not much we can't do!  Your brain thinks danger but in fact-you are fixed! Your bio speaks of a wonderful interesting life which you will resume soon as you heal!❤️‍🩹

And the magnets aren't anything to worry about

by crustyg - 2024-10-05 05:03:37

Most implanted devices have three optional responses to a magnet placed over the device:

1 Initiate a recording of the heart for 30-60s

2 Set the device to pace at a fixed rate that indicates the remaining battery life - useful for remote hospital care after an accident

3 Nothing - magnet response disabled.

It's the powerful changing magnetic field of a big magneto (e.g. ride-on mower) that's the real magnet issue.  A 4T magnetic field from a modern MRI machine is no problem at all (but your device+leads need to be MRI-compatible and to have been set to MRI mode for the imaging).

Magnets: relax.

EMP

by piglet22 - 2024-10-05 05:41:08

As the others have said, don't start your pacemaker journey full of fears.

Pacemakers are reliable,very mature devices and are built to withstand most of what daily life can throw at them.

In normal life and excluding some occupations like electric welding and testing powerful radio transmitters, you can do pretty much whatever you did before

See your device as an enabler.

You are one of a large number of people globally with heart block or other heart electrical conditions that can easily be fixed with a pacemaker.

Rest assured that if something catastrophic happened like a nuclear explosion or a sudden surge in solar flare activity, or even a lightning strike, there would be more pressing things to worry about.

Rightly so, you do have to be more careful in what you do, but not to the point of worrying.

You can always contact your clinical team if you have concerns, or as in if you want to be a millionaire, you can ask the audience 

The club has a large number of battle hardened individuals who have experienced most of the things daily life brings.and more than happy to help with queries.

Riding mowers

by Lavender - 2024-10-05 10:51:37

I do use a riding mower regularly with no problems at all. Another member here, AgentX86, was told not to use one. Ask your doctor or the manufacturer if you have concerns. 😉

Sudden Pacemaker Failure

by DoingMyBest - 2024-10-05 14:11:57

Something rarely discussed here is how our hearts would get on if your pacemaker suddenly stopped working (a very slight, unlikely possibility). The truth is few of us would instantly drop dead. Most would have considerable time - days, weeks, months - to get it sorted out. Not that waiting is good, but you'd likely survive.

Your heart has built-in redundancy to keep it beating. Your primary pacemaker is the sinoatrial (SA) node, also known as the sinus node. It's what nicely keeps your heart beating throughout its normal range of heart rates.

Secondly, the atrioventricular (AV) node will take over if needed and initiate beats at 40 to 60 BPM. I don't think it is effective for stimulating the atria, and you'd likely feel terrible, but it keeps you alive with the ventricles beating at a sustainable rate. Look up "junctional escape rhythm."

Thirdly, in the absence of other intrinsic signals, Purkinje fibers in the ventricles will kick in with a rate of 20 to 40 BPM. Again, you'll be in bad shape, probably unconscious, but the heart will keep going and keep you alive.

I can't speak to why pauses happen and why the AV node or Purkinje fibers would allow that to happen. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can explain that.

Regardless, the point is that for most people a sudden pacemaker failure is not an instantaneous death sentence. When people say they are pacemaker dependent and 100% paced, that is true to experiencing normal, comfortable life with a properly functioning heart. But it doesn't mean they die the instant the pacemaker quits.

The cardiologists know this, but for some reason fail to explain it or assume we somehow know it too. Everyone should learn this before they go home.

Disclaimer - I am not a medical professional. This is my interpretation of things I've learned from internet sources.

Yay

by Lavender - 2024-10-06 10:12:53

Glad we could allay your fear-for now.  Our sneaky brains turn on the danger sign often...even when there's no real danger. Glad you're smart enough to research before caving in to unreasonable fear.  Been there done that. 😘