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Sandra K. Prospective Patient

Batteries all the time!

Sun, 05/28/2023 - 4:51PM

I got my LVAD July 2021, Heartmate III.  I found that using wall power made me nervous overnight, after the power went out. I find it easier to use batteries day and night now. Anyone else do this?

458 reads
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Paulette L.

Mon, 05/29/2023 - 6:18PM

I use the batteries when it rains during the night only.  Otherwise I use the wall unit

Paulette L.

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Deannie S.

Tue, 05/30/2023 - 12:54AM

I have done it for 6 weeks or so a couple of times when our house was being worked on and I slept in a recliner in the living room. But not usually. I would worry about hearing them alarm if something went wrong. I once went to sleep watching TV without a full charge and they had been beeping for 28 minutes when it woke me. That was scary, but so is losing power in the middle of the night. At least that alarm gets your attention!  If we have storms predicted I do sleep in batteries.

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Sandra K.

Tue, 05/30/2023 - 11:26AM

Does anyone know why we have the wall power option? Is it so we don't need to have heavy batteries by us  while sleeping? I've had an lvad since 2021 and still feel like I'm new at this.

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Kelly S.

Mon, 06/05/2023 - 5:58PM

The reason to use the wall power at night is the loud alarm that will alert you if either power goes out or something is wrong with the controller.  When on the batteries the alarm sound is not enough to wake a person up.   My husband has had is LVAD for three years now, it is so important to change over at night.

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James H.

Mon, 07/10/2023 - 1:15PM

It was exspensive (about $8500).  I had a emergency standby generator installed before I even left the hospital.  It takes less than 10 seconds to automatically switch to generator power.

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Larry B.

Tue, 09/26/2023 - 6:19AM

I’ve been on batteries 24/7 for almost 7 years now. Between the cat wanting to play with the power cord and me trying not to trip over it navigating to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it was a no brainer option. My team doesn’t even try and chastise me anymore!