Effects of 5G on Pacemakers

Hi all,   I'm quite concerned about the effects 5G will have on our pacemakers.  If you have read all the conspiracy theories about 5G, they are rolling it out here in Australia and most parts of the world,  while we are all in lockdown, towers are going up all over the place and as the schools are empty they are out putting it in... (this is actually happening, countries like Switzerland, Belgium etc are banning it till they study the health effects) 

I had my pacemaker checked yesterday and asked my technician if Medtronic had done any studies on the effects and he said no not that he is aware. 

Ill tell you why Im concerned.  I have had pacemakers since 1975 and in 1996 we travelled around Australia in a combie with my kids 2 and 4 years old... only a few months prior to our travels I had my pacemaker upgraded to a dual chamber - you beaut latest technology etc...   In those days we had the big Nokia brick like phones...  

So out in the remote areas of Oz there was no signal we didnt even have 2G i dont think or maybe thats what we had... so every time we would come into a town on our travels at about 5-10 kms out of town, I would get stabbed in the chest /pacemaker area with a piercing pain (like when you touch someone with static electricity and you get the piercing shock) and I would catch my breath (pacemaker would mode switch), and then we realized it was the radio/mobile phone towers.  Hubby would be the spotter and call out there it is and the mobile phone would come on line.  The other thing that happened now and then was I seemed to get piercing pain when someone was on a mobile phone near me, it was if the signal went via my pacemaker first.  When we got back to the city it just happened all the time.   

Some of you older pacemaker people might remember if you turned your battery operated radio off the station you could hear your pacemaker beating/ticking, just like when the phone would ring in the car and your could hear do do da doo before it rang, kinda like dial up internet noise.  

Anyway everyone thought i was completely nuts.. my specialist called me crazy, medtronic shrugged their shoulders.  Then a few years on everyone started believing me, studies where done and the new pacemakers where insulated against this type of interference.  My specialist was amazing and went out of his way to prove i wasnt nuts.. I also have what he calls a spagetti factory of wires still left in my heart which could of been causing the conduction of waves and making it even more pronounced for me.  

So this is why i worry about 5G.. the gigs it puts out is going to be god knows how much more powerful than anything we have now.  We are even warned now not to put phones in our top pockets over our pacemakers or use that side to talk on the phone...   Mmmmhmmm makes you wonder doesnt it. 

Has anyone done any research or have any articles on it that you can share. Ive started searching the internet but not coming up with much yet. 

This is a post from 2015 covering off what I just explained... 9 years after it was happening to me

https://incompliancemag.com/studies-confirms-smartphones-interfere-with-pacemakers/

3 Comments

Conspiracy theory nonsense

by AgentX86 - 2020-04-07 23:48:50

Subject says it all.

I had a brick phone

by dwelch - 2020-04-08 02:30:35

and a pacer, no issues. they used a LOT more power.  5G on the phone side wont be all that much more powerful if at all.  If you want to get scared you should be worried about pacers with phone apps for checkups, or the box you take home.  The new phones are not going to be an issue any more than the current phones.  I put mine in my pocket near the pacer almost daily, no issues. 

Phones already have multiple active radios in them now, this will be just one more radio, the phone will consume a little more power than the prior models if you could even measure that (have to rip the phone apart disconnect the battery and put a meter inline), because of the extra radio and the device switching between radios as it talks to towers. 

If 5g phones were three/four times thicker than 4g phones due to the battery, then yes we would have something to talk about here, but the new phones will be essentially the same form factor as we have had for a while now.  

If you really want something to fear, bluetooth as it is the same frequency as the long range radio in your pacer (the one that talks to the take home box), and even worse the pacers that can have a phone app and or a phone that can talk to a pacer, that is very scary.  There is no protection other than protocol in these devices (really not possible) so if/when someone can speak that protocol they can mess with the device, if the vendor allows the long range boxes to mess with the device (would be very dumb, but...).  I dont have a take home box and would rather just have the long range radio turned off, but have not bothered to ask.  Like you I have spent most of my pacer time without the option of a box and never had to worry so why start now.

I can fully understand that you got bit once by this and dont want to get bit again.  Just keep stuff away from your device.  The signal goes like the surface of a sphere, one over the distance squared.  2 inches is 1/4th the power of 1 inch away, 3 is 1/9th, 4 is 1/16th and so on you really have to be right up in there next to the device, or you need to have significant power, for example you need to hug a big transformer for it to do something.  Frequency matters as well not just power.  You are the one person here that way back when could have been affected by microwave ovens and the like.  The early pacers had less of a protocol so I understand.  Stories of a guy that would pass out driving to work every day, where the microwave antennas were blasing signal across the highway (yes that is illegal here, and maybe this was an urban legend).  From research from someone who did hack into a device the frequency is simlar/same as bluetooth but the protocol is different, the IP used in bluetooth is not going to be generic to speak any protocol, but just the ones that are part of the spec.  Anyway, even by the 80s your devices were much safer from interference as with my first one and all the ones since.

We are being bombarded with signals every day, constantly, and the devices work just fine.  You either need a strong enough field such that the pacer cannot detect your natural rythm, or you need something that targets the communication interface of the device itself which is either then longer range radio that talks to the take home box, or the shorter range one where you need the attacker to have something sitting right over you device. (or the specific make/model/or manufacture of a device has a weakness, but that wouldnt be universal to everyone with devices) Magnets really arent a concern, they just put you in battery test mode which just locks your rate.  I assume the only concern with magnets is maybe sticking the relay/detector such that you have to get a new device, or have to wait for the device to drain off the energy and be stuck in battery test mode the whole time (not unlike being stuck in the safety mode for days or weeks waiting for an operating room and surgeon to put in your next device, been there done that, twice, was okay). 

Again I understand your history and you go 10 years further back than me with devices.  When the devices were not yet mainstream nor common, which also means had more kinks to work out.  So i can understand being concerned specifically about new phone radio stuff.  And perhaps nothing we say here will ease that concern.  Whatever got you through 3G and 4G and bluetooth, and wifi and all of its flavors, all the handheld radio stuff, etc.  You will need to do that again for 5G.

Thank you Dwelch

by Narelle - 2020-04-09 20:32:25

Appreciate you taking the time to outline a very informative reply,  that all makes sense as Im no AAE on radio, microwave and mobile signals, you made me much more comfortable in regard to 5G... Thank you. 

PS Ill also do some more research to understand how it all works now so I can fact check conspiracy theories.   

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