Author: Dr Sanjay Kumar

We wish to speak today is how do you take care of a pacemaker? Dr. Sanjay Kumar, a Cardiologist in Faridabad talks about who needs a pacemaker and how do you take care of a Pacemaker. Read on! There seems to be an inherent fear among people, that if they were to have any kind of device in their body, it may hamper their daily living, it is a very simple thing to say that whenever we as medical personnel intervene, it is only to make the life of fellow mankind better. So when we give any devices, we eat in the heart, beating your knees, beating your shoulder, all of these, these are meant to make your life better.

Who Needs A Pacemaker? – Dr. Sanjay Kumar, Cardiologist in Faridabad

Dr. Sanjay Kumar – A cardiologist in Faridabad will just try and make you understand that this is the structure of the heart, we have two upper chambers, and we have two lower chambers. For all of us, the electrical impulse comes from the upper chamber, it first goes to the upper chamber, then it goes down with the help of special electrical wires. This is just like you have electrical wires in your home. Similarly, we have electrical wires in our hearts.

More often than not, just so the new homes, the electrical wiring can break, you call the electrician, the electrical wires may switch off for some time, similar in the heart, these electrical wires can become dysfunctional, as we age.

Sometimes, the natural pacemaker of the heart begins to march slowly. And other times the other part of the electrical system may become dysfunctional. So how does the patient present it, the patient presents themselves with weakness, fatigue, or we have very traumatic symptoms, such as having a fall and fainting. So whenever your family is an elderly patient or a middle-aged and about complains of a fainting spell, it needs to be given its due importance, you must seek medical attention, you must do an ECG. Right now we have several diagnostics, which we can do an ECG picks up the rhythm right then sometimes the ECG may not pick it up, then we tell our patients to do a full job. It just has three electrodes, which are stuck to the surface of the chest. And this is a pocket we give to this device in this pocket. It records ECG for 24 hours, 48 hours, maybe one week, maybe two weeks.

That is the utility of an extended loop recorder. Or sometimes we may use an ECG machine as compact as this loop bonuses. What does this do? This records an ECG. How does it do that? It is very simple. All we got to do is have an application on our phone. And before this device in our fingers, just simply hold this little device. You can record your ECG in the comfort of your home, capture the episodes of dizziness, and immediately sent it to your doctor.

It could be a pacemaker It could be a defibrillator, it could be a biometrical, a pacemaker with a defibrillator. And typically these devices look like this. These are bigger than their defibrillators, the pacemakers are much, much smaller, but that’s how they look, the pacemaker and these are the leads, the leads go inside and the pacemaker is inserted. So, that is to tell you about who needs a pacemaker, you have just understood that.

How is the Pacemaker Implanted

We have to put the pacemaker under the left collarbone, and the lead goes inside the heart. And that is how a pacemaker is implanted. They’re called cardiac devices. They could be a pacemaker or could be a defibrillator. It could be a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator it could be any of these devices.

So you should not be worried about these devices, they are only to make your life better. So to say, once this pacemaker is implanted, during the acute phase, because this is placed under the pocket. But because it is a rock walking, we have just made one, you have to ensure that you take a course of antibiotics, because antibiotics typically last for about five to seven days, you must try not to miss your antibiotics.

So the first thing is to remember that you have to take antibiotics, and the antibiotics must continue for at least five to seven days.

The next thing you have to remember is when you go home off the pacemaker, you must remember that you can lift your arms up to the shoulder level. We always instruct our patients to remember to keep their shoulder moved but a subset of patients are very scared, and they will have pain if they raise their shoulder. By doing so, if you don’t raise your shoulder, it can result in a frozen shoulder.

However, there could be some outliers, wherein the route can take a bit longer. It is important to understand that we should not become impatient. We should continue to Seek an  Appointment With The Best Heart Specialist and keep going back so that you’re implanting doctors’ confidence and tells you that you don’t need to come back again. Till then keep going back to your doctor.

The pacemaker site normally has absorbable sutures. However, when you have any injury route, what you should remember is when you have a specimen on the left, you should avoid sleeping on the left. If you have a pacemaker on the right, avoid sleeping on the right for at least one week to 10 days, because we do not want any blood collection on the pacemaker site.

Along with this, I want to tell you, those of you who are on blood thinners, and need some procedures, like a pacemaker, it’s important to discuss with your doctor that you are on blood thinners, we may want to either stop the blood thinner for a day or two, or we want to do the procedure on the blood thinner depending upon your clinical condition.

At this time, when we’re talking about this, I think it’s important we also discuss at the very end about the vaccine and practitioners because many of you who want to learn about what to do what not to know when you have to get vaccinated, which I will certainly touch about. If you develop a fever at any point in time, after the pacemaker the first one week or 10 days, you must immediately go back to your doctor.

But the most important thing is the cell phone whenever you go you should try to keep the cell phone on the contralateral which means if you have a pacemaker on the left, use your mobile phone from the right. And if you have a pacemaker on the right keep the mobile phone on the left this you have to follow for a lifetime.

The reason being there are certain magnets that are good not with the pacemaker, these magnets will interfere with your pacemaker.

Those of you who are using these into the scanner, to those of patients who are having an iPhone 12 and have cardiac devices, especially defibrillators must remember to keep their iPhone specifically aware and should not place the Phone in their upper pocket. You should always keep your cell phone in the pockets of your trousers or in your handbag. Do not place your smartphone in the chest pockets.

The next thing which comes up is the electrical appliances at home. So what happens when you have a microwave or you have your mixer or you want to use a television remote or you want to use a remote phone.

So you should remember that all the electrical appliances can be used when you have a pacemaker. A word of caution is that when you are traveling or you’re working or you are staying where there are very strong electrical transformers, the ones that you see which are placed in colonies to supply the electricity, you should not be pouring around those electrical transformers because they have magnetic fields and they can interact with a pacemaker.