Sinus modification- your experience

Hi guys,
26 F, I have IDDM in addition to HTN, and IST. I have a fast rythm eversince, but in the last few years it's hell, I have a resting of 120-197 and feels horrible. I tried verapamil, beta blockers, and the new drug ivabradine. On each of every of this drugs, on the lowest dosage, I got to the ICU/ICCU and in 2 times even to ACLS with mechanical ventilation and anesthetization, so after the last poor experience with ivabradine under which I developed a sinus arrest, they decided to implant a pacemaker in order to treat me safely. The thing is that the medications still lowers my BP too much, and now the EP thinks about doing the sinus modification/ablation (my cardiologist still resists, but this is the EP opinion). What is your experience with it? did it solve the problems? did you hear about people who had complications afterwards?

Thank you in advance and take care
Yael

[cindy707]

Sinus modification thru and ablation?  I don't think i could write letters that are big enough to write a BIG NO NO....are you kidding?  I understand that you are on a pacemaker to regulate your heart however the sinus/AV node is the brain of the heart...if it were my body i would do every bit of research that i could to ensure that it would not be counter active to me....i would look to the long term effects and the what ifs.....good luck......

[yulinda1984]

Hi Cindy!
Thank you very much for your answer, I try to make up my own research regarding this procedure, and this is the reason, why I try to approach to the people in this forum. IST by itself is a rare condition (in as much as I get to understand it), and this procedure is even more. Here the opinions in my medical team are quiet variable. My cardiologist who knows me and the complicated situation I'm in is strongly against the procedure. His main argument is that it is a dangerous procedure because it can be reversed, and he's not absolutely sure it will solve the problem... On the other side my EP that doesn't know me for a long time and only recently got to the hostpial from NY is advising for doing the procedure because he thinks that he won't need to ablate the whole sinus and I won't be 100% paced. The situation is quite bad at the moment because right now the rythm is all the time between 110-190 (while do nothing) and the symptoms are quite bad. The thing is nothing works- I cant take the medications because of the BP, and the acupuncture I'm trying at the moment, is not working for now either. Off course I can take some tranquilizers and it's probably will be good, but I have no reason for self distruction.

The thing is also that even the scientific medical articles I read on Pubmed have no one consistent answer regarding the procedure.

Thank you very much again
and take care