Battery replacement

My husband had a pacemaker installed in 2003 at the age of 28. He just had a check up today and his pacemaker has been on since March 19th. The tech said that happens sometimes when the battery gets real low. We are scheduled for an appointment with the surgeon to have it replaced. This is the first time we have had to replace it. Does anyone know how much that typically costs? His insurance has a $5000.00 deductible so I know most or all will be out of pocket.

1 Comments

New Pacemaker

by SMITTY - 2011-05-12 07:05:12

Hello Tyoung,

nfortunately the cost this time will not be much less that the one he got in '03. I got a replacement for my 9 year old PM that I had gotten in 2000 and the cost was in the low 20s. I have lost all paper work on it so can't do any better than that. The main difference was there was as not nearly as much testing done and my existing leads were used. But other than that the PM itself will cost at least as much and it will be a newer model that can do more than the old one (don't ask me what more is).

As for his current PM being on continuously, that is what is known as the VVI mode. When the battery strength reaches a certain point the PM shuts down several features and goes into the VVI mode which is pacing one chamber of the heart full time to save battery power.

In my case that was pacing the ventricle (I think they all do that) at a fixed heart rate of 65 BPM 100% of the time It had been pacing the atrial about 95% of the time and pacing the ventricle about 5% of the time. For me that was not fun.

The only good part about it all is I didn't have all the arm movement restrictions I had with the first implant.

Good luck to your husband,

Smitty

You know you're wired when...

You participate in the Pacer Olympics.

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