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Device Change
- by Old male
- 2024-11-20 23:35:21
- General Posting
- 35 views
- 1 comments
Early Oct. ICD interrogation indicated 5 year remaining battery life for my device installed spring 2021. A week later the 16 beep warnings started. I had previously experienced this signal in 2021 after my 1st device lasted 7 yrs before battery depletion.
Met with Boston Scientific Rep and it was determined a sudden battery depletion had occurred. Immediate replacement was required and scheduled for the next morning. One lasted 7 years and another 3.5 yrs. So now, I'm with a 3rd device and life goes on.
1 Comments
You know you're wired when...
You need to be re-booted each morning.
Member Quotes
As for my pacemaker (almost 7 years old) I like to think of it in the terms of the old Timex commercial - takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
Battery
by piglet22 - 2024-11-21 04:47:45
Hello
Glad to hear you have been sorted out.
Having a defibrillator is a different proposition to having a pacemaker, but I do know what a sudden drop in battery output can do.
I ended up in our (UK) emergency department whenI I had odd symptoms in 2016.
Despite knowing that the battery was on its last legs, nearly 11 years old, the pacing people still managed to let it fail. To be fair, it was before the days of home monitoring.
I'm in the same position right now with a replacement that was due in January 2025 brought forward to just before Xmas.
What yours and my and probably others experiences tell you is that predicting battery life is an imprecise science. I have commented before that although battery behaviour is well understood, you can end up with small changes in voltage being multiplied up in software and resulting in calculated lifetime changing unexpectedly. I use battery output to monitor sensors in the house and you can see it change dramatically following something like a data transmission. It usually recovers afterwards.
In electronics, there are specialized chips called fuel gauges that are specifically designed to monitor batteries. I don't know what they use in our devices.
It's an uncommon experience, but does happen. So much so that no-one in A&E could figure out what was going on and at least one saying that it couldn't be the pacemaker at fault. An interrogation of the device later told another story. It was changed the next morning.
I'm quite hoping that the new one will allow me to keep an eye on the device a bit better.
A device change 6 days before Xmas Day, no driving or flying for a week, means at least I will have an excuse to do absolutely nothing. Just as well nothing organised.
Good luck