SVT in 12 y/o son

[Medicdano]

My 12 y/o son just started suffering from exercise induced SVT 2 days in a row he went into SVT rate of 240 bpm lasting a few hours.  The first day he needed 6 mg of Adenosine the second it broke on its own after lying down on the litter in the ambulance.  I am a paramedic and so is his father neither one of us is very familiar with children suffering from SVT.  We are going to see a pediatric cardiologist on Monday and I would like to have some ideas in my head as to actions.  I have been doing a bunch of reading and it appears radiofrequency ablation is the best option however I have not seen very much on children.  Do you think it is safe for children or are medications a better route?  I would prefer my son not being on medication for life especially as a pre-teen.  

[Cleveland Clinic]

Glad to see you received the help you sought! I would suggest also other medications to be tried such as beta blockers. But RFA of a re-entrant pathway is the procedure of choice, especially if it is located on the right side, where it is technically simpler to ablate.

[Katwit1]

A related discussion, SVT in 13yr with Dextrocardia with Situs Inversus was started.

[Katwit1]

A related discussion, SVT in 13yr old with Dextrocardia with Situs Inversus was started.

[Oradell]

Our 11 year old son also has SVT (170 bpm) and we are considering the ablation.  He is able to stop the SVT using vagal pressure. It seems to come on after playing basketball or after eating rich foods with soda (he also has reflux and severe food allergies)   Is this enough?  I have him on a beta blocker atenolol and he seems ok.  I get the feeling like there is something else that someone is missing.  What helped you make your decision?

[jonparker]

I am 18 years old. I suffered from SVT as a child. I was on medications for a few years before finally having the ablation at age 9. The surgery went very well, and was a great decision. I have since run a marathon, and many other races. It is a good idea. Go for it.

[Medicdano]

Thanks for your response.  I just got back from the Pediatric cardiologist and we are going ahead with the ablation sometime this summer.  Since the SVT did not break with many different valsalva manuevers (we tried them all) he was in it for a total of 5 hours in 24 hour period...and it was causing him to get faint and his blood pressure was low so we decided not to "play" with it and to just take care of the problem.  Thank you for your response though and good luck with your health.

[GranRon]

I began having exercise induced SVT in my early teens and learned how to stop it with vasovagal pressure.  No one told me how to do it, I just squatted down one day while in the batter's box playing baseball and the pressure terminated the SVT.  I would get PSVT after diving in a swimming pool, and other types of excitement, such as asking a girl for a date, would trigger an episode.  In most cases, I was able to terminate the SVT within a few seconds or minutes, but, on occasion, it might last an hour or so.  Once it lasted for 8 hours before reverting on it's own.  I never went to a doctor or told my parents about it until I was 22 and began having some PVC's, which scared me more than the SVT did.  I am now 65 and only began taking a beta blocker for mild hypertension 3 years ago.  Until then, I was not on any kind of medication (my decision).  The SVT became less frequent as I got older and it was also much easier to terminate as well.
I still have PSVT, PVC's, and PAC's just as I always have and I long ago realized that I was born with this affliction, it's in my DNA from my paternal grandmother, who died at age 99, by the way.  I would get several opinions if I were you, mainly because your son has yet to go through puberty and the changes associated with it.  On the other hand, my stepson, who is 28, was diagnosed with WPW syndrome at age 25 and an attempted ablation was unsuccessful because the heart cells causing the problem were too widely interspersed with normal cells that could not be isolated from one another.  He is currently taking Atenolol and it seems to be helpful.  At some point he is probably going to have a pacemaker implanted after a general ablation which will destroy some of the Sinus and AV node capability.