Customer story: Agnes
Customer story from Agnes
I have been wearing the Vital Beat shirt and shield since 2019, and I am very satisfied with it. My pacemaker keeps pushing outwards, causing it to lie very close under the skin. A year after my first pacemaker, I got a renewal due to problems with the pacemaker. They immediately made the pocket a little deeper during this procedure, but unfortunately this did not help. After six months, the pacemaker pushed itself out again. This makes the skin around my pacemaker irritated very quickly, especially when using a car seatbelt. In daily life I am a courier at DHL and I spend a lot of time on the road.
Trying to find a solution: from sponge to special pillow
I have tried everything to alleviate this irritation. From a soft cloth between the belt and my body, to a sponge and such a special belt cushion. It worked a bit, but this was still problematic every time getting in and out. Of course, I wanted to keep wearing my belt safely. I struggled with this for about two years.
Vital Beat’s giveaway
After those two years I read a piece about a shirt with a shield, in retrospect this was probably from Vital Beat. I had a bit of a hard time seeing the perks of this product, isn’t that uncomfortable and that thing is way too hard, isn’t it? And how does one wash it, that’s going to break right? Not much later, with this article still in my mind, I saw a giveaway from Vital Beat on the website of the Dutch Heart Foundation. I didn’t hesitate for a moment to participate; this would be a great opportunity to try it out anyway. I wrote a piece explaining why I should win. Interestingly enough, there were even other people who said that if they would win, they would give their prize to me. But surely enough, I won!
Some minor adjustments
After a few days I received the shirt neatly packaged, after which I immediately started wearing it. I was not completely satisfied right away. I did have protection against the car seatbelt, but when I bent down or carried a package, the shield always hit my neck. Vital Beat contacted me after a while about the satisfaction, to which I replied with my experiences. No problem, they said, we’ll just adjust the pocket so that the shield fits better. I took a picture of how the shield would fit better and after a short time the renewed shirt came back. Perfect!
My experiences with Vital Beat
After two years of regular wear, I am still very satisfied and also share this with my fellow device carriers if they have problems with sports or work. I just wear the shirt under my other clothes and wash it by hand so that I can enjoy it for a long time. I would really recommend the product to everyone. The shield is large enough for protection if you would, for example, play ball sports. The impact would then be distributed over the shield and not directly hit your pacemaker or ICD. The shirt is made of a wonderfully fitting fabric that allows sweat to pass through and dries quickly after washing. Because it changed a lot in my work, my life is a lot nicer! Driving my car is my hobby after all.
