Worried!

Hello all,

My battery life for my pacemaker has 11 months and I have an issue; my pacemaker is on stand by and I don’t use it much. This is the thing; my ventricle lead is very sensitive and it actually hurts when they pace it when testing the leads. My pacemaker is a Medtronic Kappa 700 DR so it’s programmed to go direct once the battery gets too low, it should pace direct at 65 bpm only pacing the ventricle lead, with me being so sensitive I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle it. Has anyone experienced anything like this with not being able to handle the ventricle lead pacemaker because it hurts. Does anyone know when the pacemaker battery actually goes into direct pacing in the ventricle. I think this direct pacing makes no sense for someone like myself who’s not pacing 100%. How can you live through something like this if you were pacing at 100% with only the ventricle pacing, when we know that the ventricle follows the atrium?

I’ve ask my cardiologist to turn it off but he refused to do so, telling me it will be okay. I’m a bit worried about this and I’m having a hard time sleeping thinking that it’s going to go off while I’m asleep. Could anyone give me some insight on this matter, thank you so much for your time.

God bless,

Brother James

4 Comments

ask about eol

by Tracey_E - 2011-05-31 02:05:24

Ask your dr if you can do it before it goes into EOL. My insurance doesn't care so I've been able to do mine sooner each time and have not gone past ERI.

Worried

by SMITTY - 2011-05-31 04:05:46

Hi James,

I can tell you what transpired when the battery ran down on my Medtronic KDR 703. But first a little back ground so as to not look like I am trying to contradict some of what others said as this is what happened to me and I don't know that others have had the same experience.

The low setting on my PM was 80 BPM, the high setting was 120 BPM and the rate response was on. It paced the atrial >95% and the ventricle <3% of the time. When the battery reached some level the PM went into what is called VVI Mode. In my case this meant the PM ignored all settings that were programmed into it specifically for me and went to pacing the ventricle 100% of the time at a constant rate of 65 BPM. It made no difference if I was trying to sleep or trying to catch a rabbit, my heart rate was 65 BPM.

This meant my hearts natural PM was ignored and that resulted in some conflicts between it and the PM. The result was I had considerable discomfort. I was SOB and just generally felt extremely bad. Of course I had to go let the PM clinic do a checkup and when they told me I needed a new PM my only comment was when can I get it.

Actually I knew what was going on thanks to one of the members (Thomas, I think) telling us what would happen when the battery strength got to a certain point. Otherwise I would have been most concerned as well as hurting. Quite honestly, this happened on a Saturday and had I not known what was going on I would have gone to the ER where I would have probably spent the weekend and had nothing done. As it was I waited until Monday to see the Dr.

With pacing the ventricle being painful for you, if your's is like mine you will be well aware it is time for a new PM. One other thing, you say your have 11 months left. I had an checkup in July and was told I had 7 mo left and the PM went into VVI mode then first week of Oct. So it is really like they tell us, it is "estimated" remaining battery life and that estimate can be short or long.

Good luck

it will be ok :)

by Tracey_E - 2011-05-31 07:05:23

The pacemaker will only ever kick in if your heart is not beating fast enough on its own. When it goes to the end of life mode, it will still only kick in if your heart goes below 65. The way I understand it, it won't kick in if your heart is beating faster than that. The biggest difference between full function and eol is you lose all the bells and whistles, the ability for the pm to take our rate up and down as needed. All it does in eol is make sure we don't drop dangerously low.

I don't know about the Kappa specifically, but most of them have ERI, elective replacement mode, that they go into first. This is like the gas light on the car. The car still runs fine but you've got a heads up that it's time to get gas. Some insurance won't replace it during ERI, they want it to be in EOL first. I've had 4 replacements and never gone into EOL.

had a kappa 700

by jdavis - 2011-05-31 10:05:15

TraceyE is correct. My cardio made the mistake by not programing my pm direct and when my pm ended up EOL I was flat lining. Your cardio is only protecting you. Tracy is also correct in telling you that the ins. company wont replace the pm until it is in EOL. I had to wait until my pm was in EOL for my ins. company to pay for the battery replacement surg. As for the pain you get, I would talk more about this issue with your cardio. Maybe they can do something about that when the time comes for you to have the battery changed out depending on what is causing the problem and how invasive it would be to have it fixed.

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Member Quotes

So, my advice is to go about your daily routine and forget that you have a pacemaker implanted in your body.