ICD battery life....

There have been alot of questions regarding how much battery life gets drained when an ICD fires.  Well, my experience with my Medtronic ICD:  In Feb 2018 battery life was 11.1 years.  On Sept 4th, 7 months later, it fired 5 times and now the battery life is 10.5 years.   So, the answer is it doesn't use much when it fires, but heck it sure feels like it does!   Hope this helps ease the mind of those who were wondering. 

3 Comments

St Jude's (Abbott)

by ROBO Pop - 2018-09-26 19:05:13

St. Jude's engineers told me their devices are designed to give 100 Jesus Jolts, ie full therapy. So I guess you could take the starting voltage of your device, subtract the voltage when replacement is required and divide the difference by 100 and get an approximation of the voltage depletion for each shock. Bear in mind they leave a margin for safety so it won't be exact. Oh and if you have one of the recalled devices due to battery issues, ie early life failure, then all bets are off.

Yup...

by BOBTHOM - 2018-09-28 20:31:34

Yup, when they put it in I think it said 14 years, so 2 years later and 7 "therapies" I'm at 10.5 years left on the device.  The therapies are different depending on how many times it fires.  Mine is set to Burst (pace), 15J, 25J, 25J, repeat as needed.  So the 5 timer did Burst, 15J, 25J, 25J, 25J.  Still not sure why the first time it did the 15J and didn't do the Burst, maybe I need to go back and see if they changed the settings after the first time.  Thanks for making me think about it!  Now I have something to do over the weekend!!!  :)

First replacement in few weeks

by Pippi36 - 2019-02-24 18:36:31

I had my ICD implanted in 2010 and therefore 9 years old (next month). It has never fired thank goodness.I am really skinny and it sticks quite a bit as does the lead above it. 

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