What is this?

Got CRT-D for CHF 3/09. Had my second PM interrogation this week (they missed me in December) and actually got a woman who was training a young man and did she know her stuff!! I was so impressed I told her I loved her. Asked her a few question and found out I have a dual chamber CRT-D with 3 leads. I thought I had 2 leads. She also said the RR was on but set so low it was unable to function so she set it. I got my usual printout and asked if she would go over it with me and she would if I'd come back 1-1/2 hr. later. Couldn't do it as Home Care Nurse was coming to see my husband.She said she'd like to do some sort of test in conjunction with an echocardiogram. Told her I was scheduled for one in May and she went right out to the desk and scheduled it. My question is, what kind of a test was she talking about and scheduling for me? I'm seeing my cardio later this month and will ask him but I'd really like to have a clue about what it might show and what it would do. Can anyone help? Frank, Smitty, Inga, Pookie?

gretchen

5 Comments

Echocardiogram test

by ElectricFrank - 2010-04-26 01:04:37

I'm not much help on this one. I've never had an Echocardiogram. It seems like they wanted to do one on me back 5 yrs ago when I got the original pacer, but I turned them down on it. I figured that it would be better to get the pacer adjusted properly first. Once I got that straightened out all was working well.

In your case with CHF though its a good one to have.

frank

What is this?

by riodog - 2010-04-26 04:04:11

Thank you, Frank, Snitch and BillMFI for your replies. I also have had a lot of echo's thru the years and am familiar with the process. It was just doing the two tests together that I did not understand. I'm on my way to the site you gave me Snitch as soon as I post this. Thank you all again. I knew someone would know something. Just a wonderful thing about this forum.

AV-delay optimization

by golden_snitch - 2010-04-26 04:04:31

Hey,

my guess: she wants to optimize the so-called "AV-delay", and it has been found out that doing it while closely watching the heart leads to the best results.
You can find a a study about it at:
http://www.cardiovascularultrasound.com/content/2/1/30

Its an easy test

by BillMFl - 2010-04-26 08:04:20

They just place a hand held transducer on your chest and observe a screen. Just like they do fo observe a fetus. It shows the heart in action, blood flow thru the chambers and how well the valves are working. It also shows thickness of the heart wall, gives a pretty accurate estimate of ejection fraction and location of leads. Its a very informative test for not being at all invasive. I've had it done three times over the years and its easy.

AV Delay

by ElectricFrank - 2010-04-27 12:04:08

The one thing missing in the article is what the AV delay distribution is in the healthy non-paced population. The question for me is whether we are born with an optimum natural delay or if not how does it affect our hearts.

The other interesting thing is the way the medical community needs to have research to show that optimizing the AV interval is beneficial to CHF patients, when they already have data on it for a non CHF patient. They have a totally different way of thinking than those of us in the hard sciences.

frank



frank

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Your old device becomes a paper weight for your desk.

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