Why am I am getting repeated arrhythmia and shocks in spite of having an implanted defibrillator?

Why am I am getting repeated arrhythmia and shocks in spite of having an implanted defibrillator?

Defibrillator does not prevent an arrhythmia, it only treats it. If there are frequent recurrences of arrhythmia and shocks, appropriate medications to suppress the arrhythmia can be considered. The device may also need programming to optimise its detection and treatment algorithms as well. Certain arrhythmias like ventricular tachycardia may be treated with overdrive pacing before attempting a shock. Oversensing of T waves or other signals can cause false arrhythmia detection and inappropriate shocks. Some arrhythmia can also be cured by a procedure known as radiofrequency catheter ablation.

Sometimes a “shock” like feeling may occur when actually no shock has been delivered. This is known as “phantom shock”. This can be checked by device interrogation as the device stores electrograms of the episodes of arrhythmia detected by it. Device programming is a non-invasive procedure in which a programmer head with radio communication facility is placed over the implanted device and the information collected by the programmer for display or print out.