Pacer check print out

Thank you Smitty for sharing your print out - I have not got mine yet
but at least now I know what it looks like - I did my remote transmission yesterday so they will mail my print out to me.
I do have one question about the print out does it look the same as the one that you do when your in the Dr's office? and I see posts in here about a "EF" number ? is that on the print out and what is it exactly?
Thank you :)
Blessings
breezy

4 Comments

EF

by Roys - 2011-02-18 04:02:11

Hi
No the EF number is not on a print out. You need a Myocardial Perfusion Scan, it is Ejection Fraction, the fraction of blood pumped out with each heart beat (normal 50-80% ).
Cheers Roy

PM Checkup Printouts & EF

by SMITTY - 2011-02-18 04:02:59


Hi Breezy,

A couple of things about the PM printout copy I posted. First let me mention that so far as I know a PM checkup report is nothing more than a computer generated report of the electrical function of the heart. This may be an over simplified descriptions of what is going on when the heart is working, but maybe it will give some ideas on what is being discussed.

If we think about it our heart is really nothing more than an eclectically powered blood pump. The heart has an electric generating system that sends electric impulses to the heart chambers to make them contract and when they do this they pump blood. If it is the upper heart chambers contracting blood is being pumped into the lower heart chambers. When the lower chambers contract blood is being pumped out to the far reaches of the body. Our pacemaker sits there monitoring all of this action and when it senses the heart's electrical system missing sending an electrical impulse to make one of a heart chambers contract the PM sends the needed impulse. The PM is also recording what it sees or it is doing. For example, I have episodes of a-fib. While my PM doesn't send any impulses during one of these episodes it records the speed at which my heart beats and the length of the a-fib episode.

The copy of the PM printout I have posted is only one page of the two page report I got at that time. The report was very simple and straight forward. Of course I still didn't understand all they were saying, but that didn't matter. The data was easy to use as a comparison with my last report. Also it did tell me the percent of time my PM was helping each chamber of my heart beat. The other piece of data I am always interested in is the estimated remaining battery life. This report gives this information in months.

Now a little on "EF" (ejection fraction). As Roy said Myocardial Perfusion Scan is a method used to determine the EF. Another is an echogram and this is probably the most frequently used because it is simple, relatively fast and the least expensive. And I'm sure it is not as accurate as the Myocardial Perfusion Scan. EF can also be determined during some chemical stress tests, or a heart cath. I'm sure there are others, but I have had my EF reported as part of the results of those procedures.

Now I'll delve into just what we are talking about when we say ejection fraction. A "normal" heart is said to contain about 200 cc of blood ready to be pumped out into the body. Each time the heart beats it pumps part of that blood and that is where the EF comes in. If all 200 cc of blood was pumped that would be an EF of 100%. However, a 100% EF never happens. Roy gave numbers of 50-80% EF as being normal. If you talk to another Dr, you may hear a different number as being normal. Over the years I have been told, by different doctors, a normal EF was 50%, 60%, and most frequently 50-70% as being normal. Now which is absolutely correct, I don't know. Frankly I doubt that any single number or set of numbers is accurate for everyone.

For the remainder of this exercise I am going to use the 50-70% range and to reduce the number of calculations I'll just use the average of 60%. What this says is if your "normal heart" contains 200 cc of blood and you have an EF of 60% with each beat your heart pumps 120 cc of blood. Or I can again take me for an example. My EF is reported to be 40% and that means with each beat my heart is pumping 80 cc of blood. This 80 cc is plenty for sitting on my rump, but let me try getting friendly with the young widow next door and I would run out of steam so fast it would not even be funny. But that would probably be a life saver because is if my little wife saw me doing such she would most likely shoot me.

With that Ill stop but if you have questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them.

Smitty



print out - EF - etc etc

by breezy - 2011-02-21 01:02:26

Thank you for posting all that information - I am sure others found all this interesting too - since I have never heard of "EF" before and didn't know what it was or meant-now thanks to you I do - now for the print out - last time I did my PM check up was in the Dr's office and he did all the tests
that make you feel not so good - at that time he said I had had like 14 thousand PVC's over a period of 4 months
my question would be would I be able to see this number on the print out? he also said that some folks have those PVC's 14 thousand a day - yikes I thought I would not like that - I hate those things when I get them off and on - anyways, I haven't gotten my report yet - becuz last Wed I just did the remote transmisson and they haven't sent it to me yet - and so would I be able to see those PVC's and compare them from last time?
and compare anything else they did?
Well thank you Smitty - seems I just have so many questions about the print out - but guess I will just have to wait for mine to come in the mail :)
Blessings
breezy

maybe not

by breezy - 2011-02-21 01:02:57

ummm never mind about the "young widow" lol lol might not be worth it - running out ot steam :) and getting shot at the same time :) LOL to funny!!

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