Most Recent Messages in Batteries & Leads

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Biotonik monitor charger

Hi All. 

I have a question about my monitor. I have a Biotronik edora 8 DR-T and the charger to the monitor dies not seem to hold. I have to finagle a bit to get the charger plug to stay in the phone port so if it's not seated in right, the monitor will not charge. This is recent, I have had this since last May and all fine up until about a week ago. I will call Biotronik tomorrow and follow up but wondering if anyone has some insight. I have no idea if just subbing out th...

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Understand and Estimate Pacemaker Battery Life

Understand and Estimate Pacemaker Battery Life

This post is only for people who are interested in the technical details of how the pacemaker works.

This is a followup of a previous thread (ref 1). Useful information is given in a post by piglet22 (ref 2), in which he supplied the battery capacity of a pacemaker which is 500mA-hours. (Abbott’s batteries are: 500mA-hrs to 1200mA-hrs, ref 3)

I) Battery Capaci...

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Battery life extension calculation – need help

I am confused and lost by how to calculate battery life extension and would welcome help.

As an example, my threshold voltage Vth@0.2ms=0.5V,  pacing voltage V1@0.2ms =3V and battery life B1=6 year. (The house keeping current is in micro amp thus can be ignored for this purpose.)

I know that battery energy E=V*V*t/R   

Where:

V is the pacing voltage,  

t is the total time of pacing, which is, just equals to B and

R is the imped...

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unbelievable battery life -- 28 years

"Lead impedance at the time of implantation was 600 ohms and pacing threshold was 0.3 V. The pacemaker pulse amplitude was kept at 5.0 V at a pulse width of 0.5 ms with a pacing rate of 60 ppm."

I am surprised at 5V@0.5ms, the battery could last that long.

"Longest lasting VVI pacemaker on the Indian subcontinent: Over 28.1 years of pacing without requiring pulse generator replacement", Rajneesh Calton and others

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

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Permanent AF

When I first had my pacemaker it was set up with two leads as I was in AF 60% of the time, but I was constantly gasping for breath. 

They tell me I am now in AF 100% of the time and so they have switched off my upper lead. 
 

Has anyone else had this happen to them and has it helped?

Di

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Moved leads

I have 25 year old abandended leads on my left side and my current pacer on the right with two more leads. I have been having symptoms for years now and finally this year I decided to pay double for better health insurance for two reasons:

1. I am due for a new generator in a few months

2. try to figure out what's causing my symptoms (when bending or exerting myself I get: facial flushing, feeling of fullness/pressure in my head and neck, distention of my left jugular vein, sh...

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Longevity of leads

Hi, 

I'm on my 3rd pacemaker.  My leads are approx.  23+ years old.  I can't seem to find much data as how long they can actually last or how worried I should be about it.  For information, I am 47 - so hopefully, I won't need to get them changed many times.   Any one have any ideas where I should search? 

Many thanks - Heather 

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Battery life measures same 2.5 yrs for the last 2 years? Why?

How has it not lower battery life?

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St. Jude/Abbott alarm setting

Hi, all,

For the last several months, I've been told my pacemaker  has less than a year left in battery.

Yesterday I heard the alarm from my PM beep from my chest and it took me a bit off-guard. I happened to have my already scheduled appt. with my EP a few hours later and they said it was at 2.66 voltage and was less than 1% to ERI. They scheduled a follow-up for 3 months and said they'd continue the monthly Merlin transmissions but to call asap if I felt like someth...

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Extraction or Addition of leads

I was informed that my RV lead has a problem....oversensing noise...which they temporarily adjusted. And it has to be replaced. I was also told my RA lead is drawing more volts: from 2 three years ago to 2.9 now. But the RA lead is working fine now. The RV lead is 8 yrs old, and the other two i have are three years old. 

I was offered two choices: add another RV, or extract and put in all new. The Surgeon recommended extraction because of the RA. He said it would decrease the longe...

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Leads, Pulse

Hi everybody, I'm a new member of just about an hour ago. Name is Roger.

So Nov. 21, I had my 3rd pacemaker installed. The battery was low enough for the insurance to cut in just prior to that. The reason I had the first unit put in 22 years ago is that from taking verapamil (my personal opinion) for high BP and an irregular heart beat, the med had lowered my pulse to about 40, from about 65. I was convinced that the pacemaker would correct the low pulse, although not corr...

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7 mos to ERI

I can't believe almost 5 years ago I came here looking for a way to "cure" my heart block! I'm here to say. Not likely to happen! I have 7 months of battery left before replacement. It seems to be going fast-slow fast. December I had 11 mos. Jan 10 mos and Feb 7 mos. In October I had one year! I have monthly transmissions so I'm able to keep up with time left. They keep saying they will replace it before ERI. So my question is how close to ERI will it get replaced? 3 mos...

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Possible Allergy to Leads

I am needing a pacemaker, but I had a pain device implanted in my back 2 years ago that had to come out after 6 months because the incisions were not healing.  My doctor said I was rejecting the leads on the device.  I have contacted Boston Scientifc, but they will not tell me which leads were on my particular device (sillicone or polyurethane) just that it was either or.  I have not found an allergist who will test for these materials and do not want to have the same sitation...

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Changing placement of pacer

Hi there - My doctor (who is my cardiologist, ep, and surgeon) recently called me to tell me that I have a broken lead, which is an issue b/c I'm 100% paced (I have an underlying rhythm of ~33 bpm). He said I may need surgery to put in a new lead. I also will likely need my battery replaced in 1-2 years, and so we'll likely be changing settings to muddle through with the broken lead for a year, and then surgery to replace everything all at once. My question:

...

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How quickly do faulty leads need to be replaced?

Hi all,

My cardiologist recently told me that one of  my leads is playing up and I need a new pacemaker (battery is running out) an a new lead. Basically, a holtier ECG revealed that my heartbeat went down to 40 bpm for very short periods on two or three occassions throughout the 24 hour period, due to the faulty lead. He thinks that the lead is working fine 99% of the time, but is concerned about the issue, and thinks that I need the lead to be replaced soon. I had a pacemaker imp...

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wireless/leadless pacemakers

How many of you have leadless (wireless) pacemakers implanted?
 

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Car engine

I have a box truck with an engine in the cab like a van . Just has a cover over it. Is it safe to drive with then give alongside the dŕivers seat?

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Ventricular Lead Placement

How many of you have one of the more recently developed areas of placement of the ventricular lead such as at the LBB (left bundle branch), HIS bundle or ventricular septum? How are you doing with your leads? Any problems or all going well? Please comment on any complications.Thank you!

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Generator change

I got my new generator this weekend via the ER. I'm feeling SO MUCH better than I was when my Adapta pm was in ERI (battery save) mode. The cardiologist explained that when it goes into the ERI the pm is not in sync with my natural pacing so if I pace at the same moment as my natural beat they block the blood flow. That forces the blood up into the carotid so that's why I was feeling it so strongly in my throat sometimes. Pacemaker syndrome symptoms are pretty uncomfortable and I was...

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Bad lead

Just when I thought all was going along great, I had a pacer checkup and they found one of my leads has an "increase in RV threshold and RV lead impedance." So they want to replace it. I had 1.5 years left on this device so they said they would replace that too. They also claimed that I had progressed from Mobitz 2 to CHB. It wasn't fun when the tech tested that! 

Anyway, my questions are: Is it a big surgery to remove the bad lead? I'm guessing it will be an over...

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You know you're wired when...

Your pacemaker interferes with your electronic scale.

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