21 year old with tachycardia

My son started having heart issues 2 years ago. He was in college and had called for a few months not feeling well. I encouraged him to dr, but he didn't until one day he was home and complained about not feeling well. I took him to our home clinic, where they did an ekg and put him in an ambulance to a neighboring city. I didn't realize it was his heart. The drs there tried to lower his heart rate (175 bpm) with several drugs and after 4 hours, but him in CCU. 5 hours later, they decided to shock his heart back into rythm. He did well for about a year, and then had another eposide. It does seem to go back into rythm, but it happens many times a day. He has had many test done, and they say it is the electicity in his heart acting up. He has had an ablation in a large facility in Milwaukee, WI and they couldn't get it to stop. They tried drugs to try to control it, hoping they had ablated enough. He now lives in Iowa Ctiy and they tried an ablation again after a run to the ER. This time they couldn't get it to race. He is on medication to keep it under control, but it still races up to 10 x a day, which is totally exhausting him. He works as an auto repair tech and has been doing this since he was 14. Could the fumes and chemicals be causing this? Could it be something different? He has had a stress test, ekgs, and now, 2 unsuccessful ablations. What should we do!?!?

[ireneo]

I'm sorry he's having such a hard time. I have a tempermental heart as well. I've had 3 ablations to whip my tachy under control. I still have it (150-198 bpm) but it's generally very brief, less than a minute, rarely over 15 minutes. The choices that were told to me were live with it since it's so brief, take medication or, last resort, if I had long episodes they could do an ablation to break the connection between the atrium and ventricles and put in a pacemaker.

I choose to live with mine since they're so brief. Your son is on the meds routine right now which sounds good for the moment. He may consider another ablation in the future. Perhaps they'll have made some improvements in the technique and be able to stop his arrhythmia then.

If the meds aren't working for him, there are others he can try that might control the tachy better. 10x a day, depending on how long they last, would wear him out. I had a tachy day yesterday, lost track of how many, but they were just a few seconds each, hardly noticeable. Hope he gets some relief soon.

[madjlp]

All I'd add to Ireneo's comments is that you might consider getting in touch with the best electrophysiologist you can find and send him the ekg strips documenting the arrhythmia along with an explanation of your son's history - if I was having 10 episodes a day and had exhausted the local options I'd probably look to the cleveland clinic and see if the EPs there could do something.  I know it would require a trip and a bunch of paper pushing but given the chronic nature of your son's problems its probably worth a shot to check in with the people who have the most experience - especially with EPs that seems to be a huge factor.

We dont know enough to say which pollutants do exactly what - in your sons case the condition pre exists his current job but it is, of course, possible that the chemicals in his work place exacerbate the condition - you just cant know.  

Best of luck