Pacemaker home monitoring.

[Alphakiwi]

Two weeks ago AF returned to me after having a 2 lead pacemaker inserted 9 months ago. The idea at that time was put the pm in and wait 5 wks and then do node ablation. However it must have resolved my problem without the node avblation i have been mostly free of af since. Now i have all the symptoms back so i tried to contact the hospital specialists without success. They are so busy with covid etc.. I decided to drive to the nearest hospital and speak to the lady at the front desk. She was very helpfull and was able to contact the pacemaker tech directly whom i was able to speak to over the phone. I ask him if i could have a home PM monitor but he told me it was no advantage for me to spend 600 dollars when i was seeing them every 6 months and i could go direct to the emergency dept. The main hospital where he is is 80km away !. I have looked up info about home monitoring and it says the use of monitoring in a survey says it cuts down deaths and hospital admissions significantly but, it increases the workload of the hospital. What do people here think about this ?. I will also add that the reason i was to have the av node ablated was because i am drug resistant although i do have diltiazem as a pill in the pocket which i have used sparingly in the last 2 weeks. They have helped to get me this far .

[Desanthony]

A lot of us use the Kardia 6 lead as the graphs can then be emailed to your cardio or who ever needs to see it from your general practitioner, cardio nurses to your electrophysiologist. We have found this invaluable during the pandemic. Which device you choose is up to you as it has to be compatible with your smartphone and such like and be easy for you to use.

All the best.

[Alphakiwi in reply to Desanthony]

I have an Emay device but like the kardia it hasnt been given the go ahead yet gor use with a pacemaker

[Desanthony in reply to Alphakiwi]

Ah yes a pacemaker may make a big difference with usage.

[Sustainedvtach270]

Hello. I have such a home monitor paid by my insurance, here in the US. I had life threatening issues with a cardiac arrest. Everytime I have some episodes with heart rate above 180, they contact me to push more medication. Monday I have an appointment at the pacemaker clinic and I will try to explain my recent afib episodes by lowering my magnesium to try to heal my IBS.

[Crystalbowl]

I have a monitor which is by my bedside. It was given to me with a dongle after I had a Boston Scientific 2-lead CRT pacemaker implanted in 2019. The pacemaker is to help with HF and this plus the meds must be working as at my last echo my EF had gone from 35% to 54%. However, I am still in permanent AF though non-symptomatic. I had one of the earlier 1 lead Kardia’s but was told by AliveCor that it was not compatible with the pacemaker.

[JudyMarieC]

I have a bedside monitor which I received shortly after getting a pacemaker. It sends a report to my doctor every 3 months. It used to be programmed to send a report anytime anything was suspicious, but that was turned off recently since I've gone into permanent afib.

[Alphakiwi in reply to JudyMarieC]

Sorry to hear youve gone permanent. I would find that hard and cant even begin to think how you cope. Im drug intoĺerant. Thats why i have a pacemaker which really was put there in preparation for having the AV node knocked out. Fortunately things improved with me so that has not been necessary. That was 8 months ago.