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welding with my new ICD
well,
i just got my St. Jude ICD put in, been fighting it for a couple of months. they wanted to put it in back in Oct., but they couldn't schedule it so I've been wearing an external one (a life vest from Zoll)
I've been a welder most of my life and weld for a living now, so I've been burning up the internet. after talking to the medtronic customer service i was pretty much quoted what was on the internet pamplet, and it seemed to reference stick welding. almost all of my welding at work is T.I.G welding with the high frequency start. the high frequency is about 4 MHZ, (T.I.G. welders used to come with FCC certs in the old days) and i can shoot a 1" spark off my finger tips.
the most knowledgeable person that i talked to was at Faraday clothing in new york. not sure if his clothing will work, but it was good to talk to somebody with wisdom. they said that they're clothing can block Electro-motive, not Magna-motive forces, and i don't know witch one or both matter
but in the end it comes down to what the doctor say's and been wanting to build up my beekeeping to a level so that it will make a profit.
1 Comments
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by Theknotguy - 2014-12-16 10:12:03
Know what you mean about trying to find good information. Unfortunately we are on the bleeding edge of the medical industry. First because so many more people are getting PM's all at once, second because no one really knows what does or doesn't work. Add to that progress in PM manufacturing and you end up with a pretty confusing picture.
Since I've gotten my PM I've been trying to separate fact from fiction. I was looking at some of the medical people after they had quoted me something and wondering what drugs they were on. I couldn't believe the absolute idiocy that came out of their mouths. For example: I couldn't be in a room with a microwave oven. Would never be able to raise my arm on the PM side above my shoulder - for the rest of my life. Couldn't use my cell phone on the same side as the PM. The list goes on and on. I had to put a band aid on my lower jaw because it kept dropping to the floor.
If you look around the forum you'll see some posts from people who have gotten into industrial type areas. For the most part, with the newer PM's, those manufactured from about 2010 on, they handle EMF and RFI pretty well. Apparently the internal shielding and the external coating along with being buried under the skin shields a lot of interference. We had one Aussie on the forum who was welding. He said the nearest town was over an hour and a half away and he couldn't run into town just to put a bead on something. We also had a guy working with sintering furnaces on the forum for a while. Another was a diesel train engineer. I'm corresponding with a person on this who installs various radio devices on airplanes. His concern is with RFI. I volunteer in a woodshop and get around various electrical motors so I'm concerned with EMF. All seem to be getting along very well in spite of the overwhelming amount of misinformation that gets repeated every day. And don't get me started on the idiot news articles about hacking pacemakers or the lady who supposedly died when she went through airport security in Russia.
Unfortunately what that means is that we are guinea pigs for the PM community. We just have to go out there and see what will or won't affect our PM's and go from there. For example, I completely forgot about my PM when the daughter-in-law called and said she couldn't start her car. Ran down to her house, jump started the car. It was the next day before I remembered I wasn't supposed to be leaning over running car engines with running alternators. No problem with my PM.
I'm volunteering in a woodshop and am around all sorts of electrical motors, up to 220 volts. No problems as far as EMF is concerned. Although I did have problems when I picked up a Sawzall saw and used it on a pile of wood. It wasn't the electrical part, completely forgot my PM has an accelerometer and it got kicked off by the vibration from the Sawzall. What a rush! One of the other guys in the shop came over and said, "You shoulda seen the look on your face!" But, so far, no problems with EMF.
Had to take down a 30' tree in the back yard. Got one of those electrical chain saws. It says on the saw, "Don't use with a pacemaker." No problem with my PM. Was talking with my neighbor about it. He was thinking maybe I shouldn't use the saw while holding it over my head. Said I wouldn't be doing that anyway, trees falling on you can take you out of the gene pool very quickly.
I also travel next to TV broadcasting towers which put out so much EMF that you can see it on a computer monitor. Absolutely no problem. So the shielding on the PM must be pretty good.
What everyone has said, is that if your PM gets into an EMF or RFI field that will affect the PM it will go into a test or maintenance mode. It's similar to what you feel (or at least I can feel it) when they test your PM during a reading. The PM will stay in the test mode until you back out of the field, then go back to its programming. One person on this forum with whom I have corresponded has a PM with advanced programming so he has to be especially careful not to go into test mode because he doesn't have standard programming. (Whatever that means?)
At this time, my only suggestion is to go through the various posts on the forum, find the people who work around RFI and EMF and drop them a private note. I'm starting to do that now. Sometimes you get some good information, other times you don't. Feel free to contact me via the private message area of this forum. I'll also include a link to Medtronic's PDF on RFI and EMF, but I think you've already read it. From what I've seen it's pretty conservative in its warnings. If you read it closely you'll see you'd have to be hugging the electrical motor while it is running for it could possibly affect your PM. Don't think I'm going to do that in the near future.
In the meantime, you'll want to concentrate on healing as much as you can before you start experimenting. Because of the trauma I received prior to getting my PM, it was seven months before I got anywhere close to normal activity and over a year before I felt really good. So take it easy before jumping back into picking up the back end of a car all by yourself.
When I went back to the woodshop I could only go for about two hours at first. Worked up to three hours at a time but then would start hurting so much I'd have to quit. Went to my EP and said, "Doc, I can only work three hours and then I have to quit!" Doc said, "And your point? Work three hours and go home." Most of his patients can barely make it into the waiting room and I'm complaining because I can't pick up a 4x8' melamine sheet at 90 pounds. Hopefully you'll have a similar experience.
http://www.medtronic.com/wcm/groups/mdtcom_sg/@mdt/@crdm/documents/documents/electromagnetic-compatibility.pdf
Hang in there! Life gets better!