Newbie with another question

Hello to all:

I've had my pacemaker for going on 4 weeks now.  All has been OK and I'm feeling good, aside from being stuck in my house like many of you.

I'm curious about the monitoring capability of my device. Mine is a Biotronik, but I understand many manufacturers use similar monitors. I've been told that the monitor uploads data to the manufacturer at night and if there is a problem, the system will notify the doctor on file and they will get in touch with me.

All this sounds great, but I'm curious about how well this works in reality.   

What's your experience with such a system, have you ever been contacted through the monitoring system ?  

Any comments would be appreciated with as much detail as you are comfortable with.

Thank you for considering the question, and stay safe during this tough time.

3 Comments

Daily monitoring

by PacedNRunning - 2020-04-03 02:12:22

The bedside monitors look for alerts each day. If there is an alert, it will be sent to the doctor or team. It is only set to send certain alerts. Lead status if the leads are out of range, Arrhythmias like VTACH, VFIB or AFIB, SVT. If the battery is near end of life.  Otherwise it does nothing. Your symptoms will catch things before the monitor.  

Monitoring

by Booster - 2020-04-03 08:30:30

I have a Medtronic and have had my Dr. call me to tell me I had to much fluid around my heart based on the remote monitoring. I have had to use the hand held part of the monitor (not sure if you have one) on 3 occasions after I’ve been shocked. One of the times I used it was 3 hours after the shock. They called me within 5 minutes. Everytime has been less than 15 minutes. 

Remote monitoring

by AgentX86 - 2020-04-03 11:34:43

In reality, they upload what your doctor wants uploaded.  Rather like your pacemaker monitors what your doctor wants to see.  There is only so much memory on the  pacemaker that the unimportant things aren't stored.  If your EP is concernec with PVCs, for instance, he'll set your PM to be more sensitive to PVCs and record more of them (set the number of consecutive PVCs to a low number).  If not, the bar is raised so some other sensor can record its information.

Your bedside monitor is much the same.  If there is some probem that your EP wants to track "continuously", it can be programmed to upload your PMs data every night.  Others are less often.  Some monitors are set so they only transmit if there is something the user wants their EP to see or in place of going to the PM clinic every three months (like mine).  It depends how serious your condition is and how closely your EP/cardiologist want to track your condition.

As far a how it's done...  If you have automatic monitoring, your PM uses bluetooth to communicate with the base station.  If constant monitoring isn't needed, usually the monitor uses near-field communicatoins (puc over the PM)   instead of Bluetooth.  From  there it's either WiFi/Intenet, POTS, or an internal cell phone to the mothership.  Yes, the data goes to the device manufacturer, who then passes it on to your doctors.

You know you're wired when...

Bad hair days can be blamed on your device shorting out.

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