Battery life??

Hi -- My St. Jude Zephyr 5826 will be four years old this coming August. When it was implanted I was told that the average life was about eight years. I go for a pacer check every six months and it seems that at each visit the probable longevity decreases. Today I was told that I pace about 87% of the time and that my pacer should last another year or two? I get absolutely no reasonable response from the tech when I ask if this is normal and why the estimated life keeps decreasing. Does anyone have any idea what this is all about? Thanks, ArnieK

10 Comments

Thanks

by zephyrzap - 2013-04-04 01:04:14

I am not aware of lead or any other issues that would shorten battery life. I worry that any constraints on Medicare might make replacements difficult or impossible. ArnieK

battery life

by Tracey_E - 2013-04-04 01:04:40

Average is 8, that means it could be 6, it could be 10 or more. How long they last depends on how much we pace, where the safety margins are set, which bells and whistles we use, how much signal your heart needs. The life they tell us when we have a check is a range estimated on the current settings and usage so it's not uncommon to vary each time. If they turn on another feature or widen a safety margin, the est life will change.

The life of a battery isn't like the gas tank in a car that goes down gradually. It stays the same, stays the same, stays the same, drops a little, stays the same, drops a little, plummet. It's really hard to predict when that plummet will happen.

Did they mention any lead issues? When my lead went bad, they had to crank it up to get the signal through so the battery life went downhill fast.

The tech may not be allowed to say anything, or sometime they're just clueless and all they know how to do is print the report and do basic safety checks. If you don't have an appointment with the dr soon, I'd make one, or at least call the office and ask to speak to someone who knows more.

Good luck! Replacements are nothing to fear, they are fast and easy, much less involved than the first placement. I'm on my 4th now. If I get an early appointment, I'm home fixing my own lunch.

Battery decay

by donr - 2013-04-04 01:04:46

Zeph: I had a similar experience to Tracey. Lead broke & started eating battery. They replaced the lead, but not the battery & amazingly, my projected btry life started stepping down in sync w/ the calendar.

Got near the end & it was predicting a btry EOL for a Tues & it actually went into EOL on the Sat previous. I'd say that's pretty good!

Don't worry about it - you will get more precise predictions as time wears on.

Do you get copies of the print out after each download of data? That will show you the predictions of btry life. You need to look at the trend, not the prediction for a single month. What you need to see is if as 3 or 6 months go by on the calendar the prediction goes down by that same amount. Then you know you are in good hands & you may then call your PM "Allstate."

Don

replacements

by Tracey_E - 2013-04-04 07:04:03

As long as the battery is low when they change it out, Medicare will pay for it! I'm on regular BC/BS, they didn't give me any hassle when my last one went kaput after only 2 years due to the impeded lead. Actually, I knew the lead was bad with the previous change (I'm on #4) but I chose to keep the bad lead. It worked, it just drained the battery. That battery got 5 years with the bad lead. I plan to be pacing a lot of years to come so I chose more frequent replacements over fixing the lead right away.

Optimistic responses

by zephyrzap - 2013-04-04 08:04:02

Thanks for all the optimism regarding the future of PMs. I hope that you are all correct and that age or a complex medical history will not allow some bureaucrat to decide that the new system won't allow any further expensive care for any particular individual, no matter how productive a life that person is leading. We'll see.

future

by Tracey_E - 2013-04-04 09:04:17

At the risk of opening up a political can of worms and/or sounding cynical, I really think that's where we're headed. But we're not there yet. Those rules haven't gone into effect yet, but the day will come that a committee that does not involve our dr will use a formula to calculate cost, expected life, our current age, then they'll decide if it's approved. Very scary to someone like me who will realistically need another 4-5 devices in my lifetime.

There is currently research into pm's that will use our body movement to recharge itself, and others are researching wireless pms. I'm hoping they both become reality in my lifetime, would mean a lot fewer surgeries for all of us.

Tracey, Are we there yet?

by donr - 2013-04-04 10:04:24

Yes we are there. I have already seen elements of judgments being made based on cost.

For me it was a drug to fight an infection I caught following foot surgery. It was a lovely little bug known as enterococcous & my surgeon feared it had taken root in a bone in the second toe. It comes out of the gut & is becoming more common in hosp environments & is often drug resistant.

Had it cultured & the report came back that I was extremely lucky - it was not drug resistant. It was susceptible to Penicillin, IV Vancomycin & a super antibiotic called Zyvox.

I'm allergic to penicillin; according to the infectious diseases specialist I was sent to, it just loves to attach itself to foreign bodies - valves, PM's & their leads & artificial knees & hips. IV Vancomycin would take too long to bring it under control; He elected to go the Zyvox route. It would be a quick knockdown if it worked. Insurance is Medicare/Tricare for Life; a military retiree coverage. Pills cost somewhere in the vicinity of $115 (US) per pill on the open market. They would only approve 5 days worth for me. But - I needed up to 28 days, depending on the speed of knockdown. They would not budge, in spite of letters from my DR. Then my friendly neighborhood P-Harmacist got involved. She called me one night & said "It's approved." I asked her how she did it. "I screamed at them!" was her reply.

I was lucky - it knocked the infection down in 5 days; 10 more days as insurance & I was home free. It had NOT taken root in the bone.

It's here, lapping at our ankles.

Don

I feel your sentiment, donr

by vbilbrey - 2013-04-05 01:04:27

Similar thing for my husband who gets migraines. Insurance will only allow certain number of pills per month even though they might get used up before the month is over. Thankfully he is a veteran and gets medicine through the VA as well as backup.

I too, am concerned with what's coming down the pike for us pacers. I'm completely dependent and am concerned about waiting periods to have it replaced (if the committee deems it cost-effective and approves it) due to more people receiving health care and fewer nurses/doctors/hospitals. I have a friend who is a nurse and her hours have been cut along with the people she works with. I can imagine how it must be for the patients when there's not as many hospital staff at any given time as there used to be and thus less care for them (of course I might be missing a piece of the picture but you get my drift). It came effective this year, I believe, that hospitals will be penalized/taxed if they readmit patients within a month of their initial visit. So now hospitals are going around that by keeping them in "observation" status and sending them home instead of admitting them. More government intervention = more tax and penalties = less care for you and me.

@ Zephyrzap, they already have wireless pacemakers. They just started implanting them into patients in Prague.
http://praguemonitor.com/2013/01/16/patients-fitted-first-wireless-pacemakers

Not Zephyrzap, but TraceyE...

by vbilbrey - 2013-04-05 01:04:45

oops. sorry.

vbrilbrey

by Tracey_E - 2013-04-05 09:04:49

Pacemakers or icd's? I'd only read about wireless icd's, was not aware they are at the testing phase in humans for wireless pm's. Cool!!!! I'm hoping they perfect it before I need an extraction ;o)

You know you're wired when...

Your pacemaker receives radio frequencies.

Member Quotes

The pacer systems are really very reliable. The main problem is the incompetent programming of them. If yours is working well for you, get on with life and enjoy it. You probably are more at risk of problems with a valve job than the pacer.