Battery not working correctly

Hello, I have had a guidant pacer since 2000. At the phone and dr appts the battery reading would at first show full. Then after about 5 years it started to go down and was about half. Then suddenly it showed full battery again. I was told that this was "natural" if a gas tank does that you know something is wrong. Any way I kept after everyone and they would say look at the printout it is full don't worry about it. To make a long story short. Eventually, a guidant tech actually saw that it was almost at the replace level and suddenly it went back to full. He got several people in to look at it and then proceeded to tell me everything was fine and that the pacer would need to be replaced in a few months. They never believed the battery again and I got a new Boston Scientific in Nov of last year.
Has anyone had this happen to them? Were there any recalls?
I would appreciate any and all feedback.
Thanks

2 Comments

Some Of The Guidant Recalls

by Nim Rod - 2008-11-15 09:11:20

The following Guidant models have been recalled.

PULSAR® MAX Models 1170, 1171, 1270
PULSAR Models 0470, 0870, 0970, 0972, 1172, 1272
DISCOVERY® Models 1174, 1175, 1273, 1274, 1275
MERIDIAN® Models 0476, 0976, 1176, 1276
PULSAR MAX II Models 1180, 1181, 1280
DISCOVERY II Models 0481, 0981, 1184, 1186, 1187, 1283, 1284, 1285, 1286
CONTAK TR® Model 1241

Guidant Pacemaker Facts

Guidant Pacemakers send electrical pulses to the heart to accelerate a slow heart beat and have a seven to ten year life span before they must be replaced.
Since September 6, 2005 , Guidant has confirmed 36 failures out of 49,500 implanted Pacemaker devices.
Indianapolis based Guidant has recalled 136,950 Guidant Defibrillators and Guidant Pacemakers.
Guidant stated that the pacemaker devices could, without warning, develop a short circuit that would prevent them from delivering the shock when needed.
There were approximately 45 Guidant malfunctions and two deaths associated with this pacemaker short circuit
Guidant Corporation said approximately 63,000 of the pacemaker devices had been implanted, with nearly 50,000 pacemakers still in use.
The exact percentage of these Guidant Pacemakers and Guidant Defibrillators that might experience a malfunction isn't known at this time.

Guidant Defibrillator Quick Facts

Guidant Defibrillators are small devices implanted into the body to regulate the heartbeat in people with risk of heart problems.
On December 14, 2005 Guidant announced that 3 more patients with recalled Guidant defibrillators have died, bringing the total number of known deaths linked to the faulty products to seven.
Guidant Corporation informed physicians on September 22, 2005 about two isolated failure modes in the INSIGNIA and NEXUS families of Guidant implantable pacemakers.
As of September 6, 2005, sixteen failures associated with a second failure mode have been confirmed out of 341,000 INSIGNIA and NEXUS devices distributed worldwide.

Guidant Corporation has recalled several models of its cardiac defibrillators due to defects in the devices and numerous reports of device failure and death.
The defibrillator recall and its follow-up advisory combined affect was approximately 74,900 devices worldwide.

Up and down battery readings

by ElectricFrank - 2008-11-16 01:11:30

While there have been battery problems in some of the pacers it is also possible to get what seems like strange readings when all is well. The battery life reading is a prediction based upon the battery voltage and the amount of current your settings are causing it to draw. Look at it this way. Lets say your pacer is showing a remaining battery life of 1 year based upon pacing 90% of the time. Then at a check up they changed some settings that resulted in only pacing 25% of the time. Now it will predict a much longer battery life because you aren't using as much energy. So at the next checkup they decide to change settings again to a higher pacing voltage and also back to 100% pacing. Suddenly your predicted battery life drops to a few months.
The bottom line is that nothing was ever wrong or unreliable about the pacer.

frank

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