malfunction

Cardiac patient with pacemaker. While wearing a set of wireless headphones today felt faint... Took pulse and it was 46 BPM.. Pacemaker is set for 60 BPM. Is it possible the blue tooth wireless head phones interfered with my pacemakers computer and cause it to stop firing... Has anyone else out there had problems with the pacemaker. Mine is st. Jude model 5156..

4 Comments

malfunction

by threefingerlee - 2014-05-13 10:05:02

There are strong magnits that hold the ear buds in the headsets. And they lay around my neck ... Think the magnets are strong enough to cause a problem?

probably not

by Tracey_E - 2014-05-13 10:05:36

It's unlikely blue tooth had any impact. If it did, it would make you pace at a steady rate of 60, not lower than that. On the rare chance a magnet affects us, it pulls the switch closed and puts it in test mode just like when they interrogate.

There are several reasons you might count under 60. Did you count manually or with a monitor? Monitors are notoriously inaccurate with us. If you counted manually, it's possible you were having afib or pvc's or something else that caused beats that were happening but you didn't feel. When in doubt, call and ask to be seen.

Not likely

by Tracey_E - 2014-05-13 11:05:16

The only thing the magnets could possibly do is put it in test mode so it paces at a steady 60, and that could only happen while it was close enough to have an effect.

You wrote that today.....

by donr - 2014-05-14 06:05:57

.....you felt faint. That implies that it is a one time event, or a first time event.

Have you been using the headphones for a while w/o anything happening? If so, that tells me that it is NOT the headphones causing te problem.

Tracey said it all in her comment. Let me add a small piece of info. Magnets are directional - they have "North" & "South" poles. when they are stuck to something by either pole, their field is significantly distorted and tends to be inside whatever the magnet is stuck to, as opposed to making virtual conceptual closed curves that start at one pole & go to the other pole. Ever notice that a magnet will not stick to something with its side? Only one of its two poles will stick to something.

To answer your question partially - yes, they COULD be strong enough to affect your PM. IF they are close enough, the right kind of supermagnet & oriented such that either pole of one of them is pointing toward the PM.

Here's how to determine if it's the earbuds. Some day while you feel normal, put the earbuds in whatever position they were in when you felt faint. If they were the cause, it should happen again. If they were NOT the cause, you will feel nothing.

If that test produces no results, go see your cardio..

I think that Tracey is 100% correct.

Donr

You know you're wired when...

Trade secrets can be smuggled inside your device.

Member Quotes

In fact after the final "tweaks" of my pacemaker programming at the one year check up it is working so well that I forget I have it.