pacemaker

calibob1

COMMIE LOVER TROLL
Did your pacemaker revive you enough to return to hunting and hiking?
 

georgia_home

Senior Member
It helped a friend of mine. Was driving home, died, and zapped. Back to life. Drove home.

He hunts almost every weekend from Oct through Jan.

Just make sure they don't place the unit on the shooting shoulder side.

He had his opposite but had to be.moved. shouldering would have put the stock on the unit. Doc said BAD.

He sold his long guns and hunts with a big bore pistol these days.
 

GoldDot40

Senior Member
Got a buddy who had to get one. Never knew he had a heart issue until he had knee surgery. Heart stopped on the OT. As it turns out, his problem is adrenaline related somehow...but just showed up out of nowhere. Was never a problem for the 1st 45 years of his life.

But yeah, he's said his has kicked on a few times since when he's gotten really excited. Once as he was drawing a fine bead on a huge buck.
 

EAGLE EYE 444

King Casanova
Did your pacemaker revive you enough to return to hunting and hiking?




It helped a friend of mine. Was driving home, died, and zapped. Back to life. Drove home.

He hunts almost every weekend from Oct through Jan.

Just make sure they don't place the unit on the shooting shoulder side.

He had his opposite but had to be.moved. shouldering would have put the stock on the unit. Doc said BAD.

He sold his long guns and hunts with a big bore pistol these days.


Actually, what you two have mentioned are two separate scenarios.

By regulating the heart's rhythm, a pacemaker can often eliminate the symptoms of bradycardia (which means a low heart-rate). This means individuals often have more energy and less shortness of breath. However, a pacemaker is not a cure. It will not prevent or stop heart disease, nor will it prevent heart attacks. On persons that experience very low heart rates from time to time, a pacemaker uses a small amount of electrical current to speed up the heart-rate to a more normal rate as that is what pacemakers are designed for.

georgia-home,
The "zapping" device that you mentioned is another device that is used in much more critical life threatening conditions. That device is called an AICD which is more commonly thought of as being technically a pacemaker/defibrillator device which is also implanted just like a pacemaker would be installed.

An Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, (AICD), is a small electronic device that is implanted into your chest to monitor and correct an abnormal heart rhythm, or arrhythmia. These devices are used to treat serious and life-threatening arrhythmias and are the most effective way of doing so.

Defibrillators treat arrhythmias in two ways: In the first instance the device tries to stop the abnormal rhythm with a burst of high speed pacing (cardioversion). If that fails, the device will deliver an electrical shock to the heart to reset its rhythm (defibrillation). Patients are usually not aware of cardioversion and nearly always aware of defibrillation. It is also capable of collecting and storing information about your heart’s electrical activity for your cardiologist to check.

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I know from personal experience that this AICD device is not something that you would want any sudden bumps, jolts, falls etc to interfere with its intended purpose. When your heart goes into an abnormal arrhythmia, this device will SHOCK you with certain levels of "joules" which is a unit of measurement of electrical force that will help to get your heart back into a normal rhythm. If this first attempt is not successful, it will "fire" again with a more increased "joule" level, and it will continue to move upward in that level until your desired heart rhythm is achieved. Sometimes, it might take 2-3 additional "zaps" to achieve that level.

I can assure you that this device will make your scream and just about knock you out of your bed/chair when it fires too. My late wife endured 79 of these "firing episodes" during her lifetime. The good news is that all of these occurrences are monitored and a data base is constantly kept via computer on the life history of each person with one of these devices.


Now as to someone with a pacemaker, I think they should be able to continue to hunt, fish, and enjoy the outdoors just like any normal person would because they should be able to experience more normal energy levels again.

As to someone wanting to continue to shoot a long-gun which might be directly against the body where this AICD device was implanted, I would surely think that the doctors would not recommend that situation. I would fully understand why your friend would now use handguns instead.
 
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calibob1

COMMIE LOVER TROLL
Thanks for your replys. I have a slow heart rate and get short of breath just looking at a set of stairs.
 
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