Induction Cooktops and Pacemakers

erad · Guru

Induction Cooktops and Pacemakers

Rob Driver · Guru

The common consensus on the distance is 60 cm or 2 feet in the old term.

Google is your friend as I can see your concern about the 6 inches distance advised by the supplier.

www.google.com.au/search

Regards

Angie

Whenarewethere · Guru

You can't go to aluminium smelter plotlines due to the extreme magnetic fields.

Rob Driver · Guru

Whenarewethere wrote:
You can't go to aluminium smelter plotlines due to the extreme magnetic fields.

Now, there is a point we all should remember.

biggrin biggrin biggrin

Regards

Angie

outlaw40 · Guru

Whenarewethere wrote:
You can't go to aluminium smelter plotlines due to the extreme magnetic fields.

well there goes my next holiday confuse

markf · Senior Member

Whenarewethere wrote:
You can't go to aluminium smelter plotlines due to the extreme magnetic fields.

I worked in a computer room that was next door to the potline at the Portland Smelter and the magnetic fields there were EXTREME. The amount of screening for magnetic materials on our person was as extreme as the magnetic fields. I can only assume that a pacemaker in that sort of environment would behave badly so I wouldn't go there....

Whenarewethere · Guru

I was in the retail end of things but did a few company tours around the Kurri Kurri smelter.

Paper clips standing up on end one on top of the other in the palm of your hand was fun party trick, the stack of clips curving slightly in relation to the magnetic field.

dabbler · Guru

We did a kitchen refurb a few years ago. Installed induction cooktop and rejigged the layout. Cutlery draw is underneath cooktop and cutlery warms up when cooking. I'm not a fan.

Mike Harding · Guru

erad wrote:
Does anyone here have any knowledge or experience with pacemakers and higher powered devices such as microwaves/induction cooktops etc?

I was involved with pacemaker and defibrillator design some years ago. Rest assured the lengths the designers go to to:

1 - ensure the unit is as immune as possible to external fields

2 - recognise if it is affected and respond appropriately

3 - log and report any such incidences

are *very*, *very* considerable.

When we design such (and many other critical devices) we are well aware of the issues of the real world and know that people do not spend their lives checking the instruction manual before undertaking normal tasks.

Designing a pacemaker and similar is a massive task which will take a team of, perhaps, 50 highly qualified and long experienced people something like five years (or longer) from start to finish. *Every* step of the way is documented and meticulous records maintained of who did what, when and why.

Instrumentation is regularly calibrated and if, say, a multimeter is discovered to be inaccurate *all* previous measurements since its last calibration must be repeated and variances analysed for what effect they may have had upon other aspects of the design.

All the design and testing work is performed under the very watchful eyes of the FDA (for USA intended products) or the TGA in Australia who perform regular audits to ensure correct procedure is being followed.

Once the design is at an appropriate point extensive testing of its ability to withstand external RF and magnetic influences is undertaken, it is subjected to conditions well in excess of anything it is likely to come into contact with in use.

Additionally a "failure mode analysis" is performed in which the consequences of any single component failing are assessed and analysed - they may be doing multiple failures now with enhanced computing?

The software in the pacemaker is constantly running tests on the device's hardware and will log and report issues, usually before they are issues.

Have no concerns, pacemaker technology is very stable and understood - just avoid obvious situations:

Space flights

Sitting on top of high power radio transmitters

Hanging around a tokamak when it's running

Otherwise forget about the pacemaker and simply enjoy the new life it has provided.

erad · Guru

Mike (and others who replied):
Thank you for your responses. Naturally, I am concerned. When I phoned the manufacturer of the pacemaker, the response I got was (apart from being uninteligible) very offhandish. He just said 'Don't get closer than 6 inches to any electronic device'. I know from googling the device number that it is a stable design (I have forgotten the actual wording they used) and also there is a monitoring unit next to the bed which is supposedly checked each day by someone in Sydney for malfunctions or alarms, but there is still some doubts about it all. The PETScan people were not at all concerned about the pacemaker, and I guess that would have generated a high magnetic field, so probably a shielded microwave or induction cooktop wouldn't be as bad.

What I do know is that the pacemaker has made an incredible difference to my wife. For years she has had Atrial Fibrilation and wouldn't do anything about it. Eventually it got to the stage where she was unable to walk more than a few metres without being utterly exhausted and the community nurse finally saw this. I think they call it denial...

About 5 years ago, I was having AF troubles myself, and had an ablation in Adelaide. My wife picked me up from the hospital the next day and she couldn't believe the difference so she knew about the benefits, but wouldn't accept that she was similarly affected (actually she was a lot worse than I was). My ablation worked perfectly and I have not had a problem since then - I am really happy about that. I was so happy that I prepared a presentation for our local Lions Club and Probus about Atrial Fibrilation. The reason was not to brag about how good I felt, but rather to alert people to the potential problems that can happen. My research showed that, depending on the reference used, up to 40% of people over 80 years old have Atrial Fibrilation AND THEY DON'T KNOW IT. Now, Atrial FIbrilation is a nuisance in itself, but the main problem is that not all the blood may be pumped out of the ventricles, and blood clots may form inside the heart. When they grow large enough they can be released and then go straight to the lungs or brain. That is a stroke. A high proportion of strokes is attributed to AF. This is why I have done this mini diatribe to alert others to the potential problem. If you think that you have problems as you are getting older, get it checked out. A stroke is a horrible thing to happen to anyone, and if even one person reads this and gets checked and avoids a stroke, at least I have achieved something good today by writing this.

Thank you Mike for your comments about pacemakers - I feel a lot happier about life in general now.

Rob Driver · Guru

What a very informative post.

Thank you so much erad

Regards

Angie

Mike Harding · Guru

Erad: The local agent for a pacemaker manufacture will usually be a medically trained person and generally have little knowledge of the deep electronic technical aspects of the device. Their main role is that of a salesman to sell the product to surgeons.

EMC/RFI are hugely complex areas and the people who have a good grasp of them are usually old, very good at mathematics and slightlly odd :) I would not expect, nor want!, the local agent to do more than quote from the book. But, rest assured, the standards which govern these devices are *very* stringent and written by people who really do know what they are doing. The local guy, or indeed the factory, are never going to say more than "It meets the required specifications" and providing it does (and they all do) you need have no further concern.

Edit: typo

-- Edited by Mike Harding on Wednesday 16th of September 2020 03:46:29 PM

erad · Guru

Mike:
Thanks again. I phoned the Cardio specialist in Sydney and was referred to the pacemaker supplier's number. I phoned that and after a long period of nothingness, eventually an automated American accented voice answered, giving various options to press 1, 2 3 etc. I chose Option 1 because it was for people with pacemakers and who had a query about them (or something similar). When I finally spoke to a real person, the accent was very thick US overlaying something which I suspect was the Philipines. I asked him my question and then he went away and finally came back with the answer 'No closer than 6 inches from any electronic device'. When I tried to probe further, he seemed to clam up and wanted me to go - anywhere but talking to him. Again "No closer than 6 inches to any electronic device". When I tried to compare an induction cooktop to a mobile phone, the same reply. I gave up, which I think was what he wanted me to do.... I think that what you said about quoting the book etc was exactly what he was doing to me.

Now, we do have a microwave oven, and neither my wife nor I stand any closer than nearly a metre whilst it is running. We don't go near the back of the unit at all (that is where all the electronics are), so I reckon we are safe enough with that. We rarely use a mobile phone, although she spends hours on the hands free phone which of course is a radio system. Thusfar, no problems have been reported back to us about that. At this stage, we don't have an induction cooktop either, but one day we may get such a device. Our friends have one and I have told my wife not to go near it when it is operating. I am 99% certain that nothing will happen to her, but I would like to be 100% sure if possible. I did ask the Cardio specialist it the pacemaker had an on/off switch, but he told me that it didn't (not that I can access anyway)....

-- Edited by erad on Wednesday 16th of September 2020 05:52:28 PM

oldbloke · Guru

Whenarewethere wrote:
I was in the retail end of things but did a few company tours around the Kurri Kurri smelter.
Paper clips standing up on end one on top of the other in the palm of your hand was fun party trick, the stack of clips curving slightly in relation to the magnetic field.

Lol. And people worry about mobile phones. I'm buying a roll of alfoil tomorrow.

RoamerAllWaze · Member

Love this thread and its humour ALTHOUGH A VERY SERIOUS SUBJECT FOR PACEMAKERS.
I used to work in laboratories and you might come across a Mass Spectrometer which requires a massive magnetic field to work out the atomic structure of an item.
There WAS ALWAYS A CORDONED AREA which you were not to enter - because the metal you were wearing could be sucked into the machine.
So there is another device to stay away from!

Gaylehere · Guru

Hi Erad and Mike,

I have found the information you both gave of interest. In July I had a cardiac monitor inserted and the instructions/advice given about electronic devices eg: microwaves, cooktops, mobile phones seem very similar. (I had, what they believe was a mini stroke in January but the only symptom I had was lose of part of my vision which righted itself). Anyhow I now have a loop recorder monitor under the skin in my chest and the device (which is also beside the bed) that transmits the information from the monitor to whoever it is that looks at these things (in the wee hours of the morning) whilst I sleep. The week after next we are planning our first trip since I received this set-up. Have you and your wife travelled since she got her implant? Does the device she has by the bed work whilst you are travelling? My device says it needs to be plugged into mains electricity 24/7 to work which is not possible whilst travelling. When we set the thing up we asked about this and was told to let them know when we would be travelling/returned, so they know we are out and about. I was also told the timer for transmitting the information may go out because the device will not be running 24/7. Also my device is run through the vodaphone network which isn't everywhere. I have an appointment with the cardiologist a week after our return (only away 2 weeks) so will be interested to hear from him then. Just a by the by, does your wife have the pacemaker that's inserted directly into the heart via a vein (no chest incision)? Thank you. Cheers.

PS: I regularly use a microwave and induction cooktop as that is how my kitchen is set up at home. The motorhome has a gas cooktop but we have a single plug in induction cooktop and a microwave for when we have electricity.

-- Edited by Gaylehere on Wednesday 23rd of September 2020 11:07:09 PM

erad · Guru

Gaylehere:
Thanks for your reply. You have confirmed what I though would be OK. MY discussions with the medicos and the techies also confirmed this but there is still that 1 or 2 percent doubt which I would like to totally clear up.

No - we haven't been anywhere since the pacemaker was implanted - this damned virus has put a stop to that. Also, my wife has not been fit enough to travel - she was in a VERY deep hole before the pacemaker. Recovery back to say 60% of what she should be was quick, but the remaining 40% is taking a long time. I reckon she is now 75% of where she should be. She has other medical problems to deal with, and we are currently waiting for an oncologist to decide when she will restart Chemotherapy, so we aren't travelling anywhere for a while...

Re your questions about the pacemaker, the monitoring system will go with us when (if) we travel. I was advised that it is not essential to take it with us eg if we go for an overnight stay somewhere, nothing will explode or whatever. We don't normally go away from a grid even when we do travel, so the only limitation will be mobile phone service - I don't know what system the monitor uses but it will probably be Vodaphone as you say you have. I know that we do have Vodaphone service where we live (we also have Optus and Telstra). The implant was via an incision in the chest, so I assume it is an external wire. I know it is a single wire pacemaker. I queried this when the Cardio man asked his mate to do the job the next day. He told me that the atriums were so messed up they simply abandoned them and just went for Ventricle stimulation (the normal is a 2 wire system - one to the Atrium and one to the Ventricle). She had to have an ablation to burn out the AV node 6 weeks after the implant. Prior to that she was in AF all the time, and the minimum pulse rate was around 100 bpm. I asked a lot of questions about the device he was prescribing and he came back saying that no-one had ever asked these questions before. I had already had an ablation a few years before this, so I knew a bit about what the heart should do and not do. Indeed the purpose of posting this whole story was to alert other older people about Atrial Fibrilation and the side effects (stroke) which can happen if you have it. Depending on which reference you read, up to 40% of people aged over 80 have AF and don't know it. If I could save just one person from having a stroke, that would make my day.

The Cardio man said that they implanted the wire down low into the septum (the membrane dividing the L and R sides of the heart). I assume that they went externally to get there because it was a 15 minute procedure and my wife was conscious the whole time - just a local anaesethic.

Re the timer on your monitor, I suspect that it will use the phone network as the time reference because if you get a power outage and it used an internal time reference it would be screwed up. Incidentally, I don't know where you live, but the local power distribution company cam register you as an essential service customer, and they will then advise you of planned power outages. Depending on where you are, you also get a discount on your electricity bill. In NSW, it was going to be a whole 8 cents per day! I tried for my respiratory condition and the rebate for me was zero, but being pre-warned about power outages would have been nice. There was so much bovine excreta associated with this that ultimately iI gave up trying to register.

The Cardio man told us that we would take the monitor with us and it would sort itself out as to when ands where to monitor the pacemaker. This leads me to assume that the device does not have an internal timer and would use the mobile network. I suspect that it works the same as a mobile phone - it sits there sending out a message saying "I am here - any calls for me?" The monitoring crew would simply call up your monitor when they were ready to receive the daily log. I don't know, but I suspect that they don't look at each individual log - any alarms would be flagged and they would then look at the individual log to see what caused it. No alarms, no lookie at the log for that day. Anyway, it is electronic and nothing can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong can....

I appreciate your feedback re the induction cooktop. In theory it is OK to use them. I just like hearing that someone actually has done so.

-- Edited by erad on Thursday 24th of September 2020 10:12:21 AM

Gaylehere · Guru

Hi again Erad, Thank you for all the information that you have given me. It is very much appreciated. I hope and pray all goes well with you and your wife in the future.

When we travel we do a bit of everything - CPs, showgrounds, donation camps and free camping. Whatever is available when we decide to stop for the day; we don't have any preference one over another.

My husband is an age pensioner so we do get the electricity discount. We live in Qld.

I'm looking forward to be getting out and about and seeing some of the countryside and looking at how everything pans out with the monitor.

Cheers and take care.