Electric toothbrush

it's all fine

by Tracey_E - 2020-05-17 10:58:14

Make sure the dentist is aware of it but they don't need to do anything different with us. 

Don't raise the arm overhead or lift anything heavy, but other than that try to use the arm as normally as you can so it doesn't stiffen. I found ice helped more than pain meds. 

Not a problem

by AgentX86 - 2020-05-17 12:20:42

The only issue I've had is that they wanted clearance from my cardiologist for oral surgery but it had nothing to do with interference (mostly anticoagulants and anesthesia - he wouldn't use a general).  Yes, they want to know about your PM but it's not any different than any other health issue. Doctors need to know as much as possible about you so they can make sure they don't do something dumb.

back in the day

by dwelch - 2020-05-23 06:20:34

back in the day they would pre-medicate us before any dental work, cleanings, etc.  See other posts by Tracey_E on the topic.  Depending on when the dentist or tech was trained they may still ask you the question, the answer is no I do not need to pre-medicate.

Now my tech asked the EP about their fancy water jet thing (forget the name) and the answer was dont lay the cables over the pacer.  Before they asked they had been using that tool for a while without asking, no problems.

Your electric toothbrush is fine.  Ink is cheap, there are countless products with pacemaker warnings, that mean nothing.  They just want to get it written down for legal proteciton.  Well didnt you read the warning, as a first step to prevent you from blaming them for something which wasnt their fault.

We are all nervous about the device for a while, like the first year, and even 10 and 20 and more years later you still sometimes feel something and hmmm,  did something mess with my pacer.  Nope it didnt...

Electric tooth brush, fine.  Water pick fine.  If your heart goes wonky when the dentist is doing their thing AND you can prove it isnt just because you are at the dentists office and that by itself when they run something makes us wonky.  Then ask them not to or move the cables off your device.  They pretty much have to be right over it if it were to have an effect (which it wont).

Supposedly welding equipment.  Climbing a telephone pole and hugging a transformer...might...affect it.  Hugging a big power generator.  Getting really close to stuff in a sub station (how did you get in there in the first place).  And maybe some other items with large electric fields (no not your headphones).  The large electromagnetic fields that could potentially confuse the pacer is not a magnet thing it instead makes it so the pacer cant "hear" or detect our natural signals.  It is trying to electrically listen for the bodies signals, and if the ambiant energy is too high it cant, so it cant make decisions like fire the ventricals or keep your rate within limits.  simply moving out of the field (when you fall from the telephone pole you will be fine just before you hit the ground).   

magnets, and this is not the wimply fridge magnets, will tell the pacer to go into magnet mode which comes from the old days of the old telephone check, the pacer forces your heart rate to a specific bpm related to the battery level so 89 might mean 3v and 85 might mean 2.5, that kind of thing.  Dont really need that, a few of us have the last phone box we were issued as they didnt want them back (I think I have two), the new take home boxes and the machine at the office speak to the device a different way.   The only real concern there is if the device gets stuck in magnet mode.  So you can buy really strong magnets online, the kinds that remove security devices on department store clothing.  dont put those over your pacer.  You can hold them in your hand, no problem, half a foot or a foot or more.  The energy goes down by one over the distance squared.  2 feet is four times less than 1 foot not two times less.

toothbrush, water pik, coffe maker, hair dryer, electric razor, fridge, microwave, computer, television, tv remote control, lawn mower (yep someone asked about that), etc are all just fine.