What should I do? 2 ablations and other problems

[cocoab]

I am a 28 year old woman.  I have had 2 heart ablations to treat Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome (my doctors are questioning whether I have another form of SVT also) and I have a brother who underwent a successful ablation to fix his SVT.  My last ablation was a year and a half ago. I had an echo-cardiogram done this past April and everything looked fine.  This is what I've been dealing with the last 6 months or so-extreme tiredness (whether it's 6, 8 or 12 hours of sleep), swelling in my feet (although I do work on my feet), tingling in my hands/feet (sometimes numbness, but mostly tingling), shortness of breath (just from everyday activities like answering the door, walking upstairs, etc), my heart doesn't rapidly start going into SVT like it used to but it will gradually increase to an excessive amount even when I'm just doing a normal activity, and I've had some chest tightness and occasional nausea (that I thought was maybe flu related but has been going on too long for that).  My question is, do you think this is heart related or something else entirely?  Since my echo came back normal in April does that rule out heart stuff?  How accurate is that test? I've had an ekg, holter monitor, king of hearts and an echo done in the past.  No stress test ever.  The echo being the most recent test, the others just before my last ablation.  I feel like if I keep calling the doctor about these symptoms they are just going to say that since the echo was normal it must be in my head or something.  What are your thoughts?

[grendslori]

There are a couple of things that come to mind based on what you wrote. Could you be out of shape? (I'm not saying overweight, I'm saying out of shape) A heart rate that gradually increases is not an arrhythmia, it is the normal response to exercise. If you are SOB, it could be as a result of simply being out of shape or it can be caused by other things such as water retention. The swelling of the feet may not have anything to do with the heart either, it can be caused by the valves in the legs not working well anymore, allowing blood to backflow into the ankles and feet. As you have had just about every test in the book on heart disease, you are probably fine there. An echo is by far the best of those test you have had and if that came back normal, again you are probably fine. Having said all of that, you may want to make a followup appointment with the doctor, just to ease your mind, if nothing else.