low battery

last month my heart doctor mentioned my battery was getting low and will need replacement in about 6 months. He left before I could get some questions resolved. I think the battery was at 2.6 but not sure. It never went off thank God . I have atrial fib so thats draining the battery 3 years on this one. My last pacemaker went 8 years but didnt have the extra wire for atrial fib.
How will I know physically it's time to get it replaced ? Right now I dont have much energy and taking a 30 minute nap every afternoon ? I'm 69 yrs old and pretty good shape. Any help ?

2 Comments

BATTERY LOW

by pete - 2009-07-08 03:07:21

Franks comments are sound. No pacemaker should be allowed to drift below "Elective Replacement Mode" Do "Franks" motion check and if your heart rate does not increase you do need to insist on a immediate replacement and adopt a more forcefull attitude with your docs. Cheers Peter

Handling a low battery

by ElectricFrank - 2009-07-08 12:07:49

It sounds like you may need to be more aggressive in dealing with the doctor.

First off most of the guidelines call for monthly monitoring when the battery life gets down to 6 months. The battery indicator is just an estimate so you could have only a short time left or maybe a year. The only way to tell is frequent monitoring.

The pacer won't just stop when the battery approaches the end of its life. At some point the pacer goes into a fail safe mode where most of the advanced features are turned off to save energy. At this point they usually start pacing at a fixed rate like 65bpm and don't respond to activity.

One way to tell whether it has entered this mode is to take your pulse while relaxing and then do something mildly active like walking around the block. Now check your pulse again. If it hasn't changed you are probably in the elective or fail safe mode.

The important thing at this point is to insist (demand if necessary) that the doc sit down and go over in detail what his/her plan is to deal with the replacement. I did this at my last checkup even though it showed a year left. I let my cardio know that I am very active and am not always in a place where I could get a replacement quickly so I don't want him to wait until it goes into fail safe. It would not be good for me to be up in the Rocky Mountains at 13,000' and have my pacer cut me back to 65bpm. By the way I'm 10 yrs ahead of you at 79!

Good luck,

frank

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A properly implanted and adjusted pacemaker will not even be noticeable after you get over the surgery.