work in the mobile phone industry. am i safe?

Hi guys,

I am getting my pacemaker in 6 days, and work in the mobile phone industry, just wondering if I will have any restrictions?
I have read online that you have to hold them a certain distance from your pacemaker, is this true?

Also read somewhere that rollercoasters are a no go....i hope this was a joke!?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Amy.

10 Comments

Depends

by Theknotguy - 2013-12-27 02:12:10

I agree with the comments above. Approach large magnets, magnets with strong fields, and magnetic fields with caution. I don't think any magnets around the home would affect your PM unless you place them directly on the PM. Keep the six inch rule.

I've personally gone through RF from TV towers. The RF (Radio Frequency) in that area is so bad it will cause monitors to have "waves" on the screen - no problem. So even that heavy RF shouldn't bother you.

We've got people on this forum who are running arc welders and we're told that's a big No, No too. But they're running them with no problems.

Roller Coasters.... Cedar Point in Ohio, USA would be out along with similar amusement parks. Tower of Terror in Florida would be out. Plus they have warnings on the machinery anyway. You can ignore but the amusement park won't be responsible and I'm thinking even your life insurance company would bail out too.

I'm thinking old Disney with the mild rides would be OK after six months to a year of healing. Danger is tearing leads.

Sky diving, extreme free form rock climbing, deep sea SCUBA, rodeo riding, tackle football, baseball pitching, RADAR repair - all of the above would be out.

Question to ask yourself is if the thrill of the ride is worth dying? You'll have to answer that one.

Theknotguy

wariness

by Tracey_E - 2013-12-27 02:12:40

I was wary a lot my first year or two, everyone is. That was before the internet so I couldn't go research it, couldn't find a place like this to chat with others in the same boat. Over the years as I felt good, as my dr and St Judes rep both encouraged me to live my life and forget about it, I gradually did just that- mostly forget about it! There is absolutely nothing I want to do that I cannot. I truly rarely give it a thought most of the time. You'll get there, too, hopefully on a shorter learning curve than mine.

restrictions

by Tracey_E - 2013-12-27 09:12:43

Some drs are more conservative than others. Newer pm's are very well shielded and it's unlikely any home electronics will affect it. Some people are told to keep phones 6" from their device. I've never been told this and regularly hold my phone with my shoulder on the side where my pm is. I've been paced every beat for almost 20 years now and have never found anything that affects it.

Worst case, it won't hurt the pm. The pm has a switch, a magnet pulls that switch closed and puts it in test mode where it paces at a steady rate. As soon as you get away from the magnet, the switch opens and it goes back to full function with no harm done. If a phone makes you feel funny, just keep it 6" away, but really, that is very rare. Very few of us have trouble with any home electronic. It's the industrial magnets we have to be careful of.

Rollercoasters, again it depends who you ask! I would stay off for the first 6 months to a year to give the leads plenty of time to grow into place. The newer coasters with the magnetic brakes are probably not a good idea. If you pace with rate response, you may find the bumps on the old wooden coasters confuse the pm into thinking you are exerting and raise your rate. It probably won't feel good but it's harmless. Other than that, go for it.

thanks!

by amylh87 - 2013-12-27 09:12:45

Thank you for the advise, it definitely gives me a much better idea of how it works when I do come in contact with magnetic devices!

Can't wait to get it done now :)

Paragliding

by Bostonstrong - 2013-12-27 09:12:59

And BASE jumping are ok though. Not sure why scuba diving wouldn't be ok. Haven't had a chance to do that in a while but I'm not giving it up just because I have a pm. Life is for living.

For sure

by Bostonstrong - 2013-12-27 10:12:00

I will check depth restrictions first before the next dive. I'm also playing the pm card to suit me, telling one son my EP said I can't sky dive with him. Actually, I wouldn't sky dive with or without a pm. The thought of him doing this is enough to make my heart skip a few beats. This is the same kid who recently went shark diving in Fiji. He is gonna turn my hair gray.

risk

by Tracey_E - 2013-12-27 10:12:28

Ask 10 drs, get 10 answers on what is safe for us. The reality is not enough young, active people have had them long enough for them to really know. Most drs only have one or two of us so their first hand experience is nil. My dr only has me, the rest of his patients are retirees. My rep, on the other hand, covers a good chunk of the state and has been at this for 25+ years, has assorted patients my age, actively networks with other reps within the company, so I tend to go with his opinion over my dr. His exact words were it would take a bulldozer to get my leads out, nothing I do will ever hurt them. I trust him, I do what I want, I have never had a problem. YMMV, of course.

Choose what you are comfortable with. I live within a few hours of Disney, have had season passes for more than a few years, have ridden on every ride I wanted to go on. No issues. If we only went on the rides that didn't have heart warnings, we'd be stuck at the shows and carousel. It's a cya world and the lawyers write the warnings. I truly do not think our life is at risk. Most likely, if anything at all happens, we'll just feel bad for a little while, which I might add has never happened to me. There is a very remote possibility of damaging leads, though if I really believed this I'd be a lot more cautious. Death, uh, no. That's taking paranoia a bit too far, imo. Very very few of us would not survive damaging a lead. Just my very-not-professional thoughts, take it with a grain of salt.

Scuba has to do with the pressure. Different models are cleared for different depths. I'm pretty carefree about restrictions, but I don't think I'd dive deeper than my pm was tested.

How long is a piece of string?????

by donr - 2013-12-27 10:12:33

Amy, that is the question you are asking.

You did NOT specify exactly what you do in the mobile phone industry.

Do you sell? Demonstrate? Lift 600 lb crates w/ your bare hands & stack them in a warehouse? Watch a big automated machine assemble the phones? Keep the books in an office in the next building? Repair giant motor driven machines using 400+ volts & 100 Amp electrical power?

Let's take the last item first - working as a maintenance person on major machinery at the voltages & amperages I mentioned are a No No! Cecil (Manaman) was such a maintenance man in a factory here in the US & he had no problems till he got to messing around w/ the power levels I mentioned.

From my experiences watching automated assembly of micro circuit devices like phones, even if you are right on the assembly lines, there should be no magnetic or electrical fields strong enough to affect your PM.

That is UNLESS you have something to do w/ large qtys of speakers & their associated magnets. (Someone has to manually feed the components into the supply bins for the machines.) Being so tiny, the speakers will need to have the strongest permanent magnets available, so a whole bunch of them together COULD affect the PM - but only if you picked a bunch up & held them close to your chest where the PM is. Let me carry it step further & address assembling the speakers, in the event you do that. I don't know how the itty bitty magnets are packed & shipped, but I can envision them being stacked up & inserted into small plastic tubes. If you handle these, I'd be a bit cautious & not get a tube full of magnets close to your PM. Put a whole bunch of them close together & it could increase the overall field strength tothe point where it could affect your PM.. NOTE: I used the conditional word "Could" throughout that paragraph, so it is something you need to approach w/ respect & caution - NOT fear - there are just too many variables involved to be more specific.

If it sounds like I am contradicting Tracey, it is only because I have worked in industries where they assembled such devices. Basically, she is 100% correct - but take what I've said about the back rooms of industry & ponder them in your heart, since you were not more specific in your description of your duties.

I don't do roller coasters of any stripe - mag brakes or not, so will not comment on them.

Don

Above all good

by KAG - 2013-12-27 11:12:29

and I'll just add that you're probably going to hear that all kinds of things are "bad" and should be avoided with a PM. Remember that the lawyers help write a lot of the warnings and CYA is a big ingredient in those statements. Probably the advice that I've found the best is to approach anything you think will affect your PM slowly and with caution. You'll know it if it does affect, see Tracey's post. Then you just move away. However also keep in mind that if you have anxiety about approaching things, that anxiety can cause physical effects too. So as Don said, use respect and caution NOT fear.

As to the roller coasters, I don't ride them anymore, but it has nothing to do with my PM.

All the best
Kathy

Thanks guys.

by amylh87 - 2013-12-27 12:12:15

That makes sense, I'm sure I'll be very wary of things when I first get it done! (As I'm sure are most!)

You know you're wired when...

You know the difference between hardware and software.

Member Quotes

Stay positive and remember that your device is your new best friend.