Unpleasant Sensation

[Trudy S]

I have had inappropriate sinus tachycardia for several years. Following 2 failed attempts at sinus node ablation, I agreed to a his bundle ablation. I now have a ventricular pacemaker, and no tachycardia. However, at times I get an unpleasant sensation of waves of pressure moving up my neck and the back of my head many times a minute. It can last for a long time and make me feel tired and lightheaded. I have been told these symptoms are caused by my atria still beating quickly due to the sinus node and the ventricles now beating much slower, causing unsynchronised heart action. The advice I've been given is that I'll have to live with these symptoms - any comments?
Thanks,
Trudy

[ANNEMARIE VROOMAN]

Hi, I have also been diagnosed with sinus tachycardia syndrome this past April.  I have been treated with medication so far with quite a few side effects.  I recently saw an electrophysiologist in Toronto, Canada about ablation surgery and he is only giving me a 40% success rate with a very high chance of ending up with a pacemaker. Any advice from your experiences?

[Trudy S]

Dear Jan,
You are quite right, I decided to try sinus node ablation because the drugs either did not work or caused undesirable symptoms for me. I don't want to try them again. To answer your questions, they first tried sinus node modification and, when that failed, complete ablation, which also failed. I couldn't recommend any specific course of action as they all have their drawbacks which you don't find out about until they happen to you! I would say that, if drugs work for you, don't rush into anything as drug therapy is always reversible but what I've had done isn't.
All the best to you,
Trudy

[jan]

Dear Trudy,
I am sorry about your new symptoms, it sounds very unpleasant. I have IST, too, so I was wondering if you would mind answering a few questions for me. Was it a sinus node ablation or modification that they were trying? Why did you decide to try it? In reading your post I was thinking maybe you did it to get away from taking medicine and here they are telling you you'll probably need to take medicine for SINUS TACHYCARDIA! What would you tell someone, like myself, concerning treatment options for IST? Thanks and good luck.

[Cleveland Clinic, MD]

Dear Trudy,
As you describe the most likely cause of these symptoms is the atria beating against a closed ventricular valve.  The blood subsequently goes backwards and may be causing these sensations.  I suppose the only way to deal with it would be medication to control the sinus tachycardia.  I would discuss this option with your doctor.