What should I do about a sinus arrhythmia in an 8 year old?

[Felecia]

My 8 year old son complained on his "heart hurting", and feeling dizzy and out of breath on several occasions so I took him to our family practice physician. She diagnosed sinus arrhythmia and the EKG confirmed.  She said its nothing to worry about. He has bad allergies and takes 10mg of Zyrtec daily. She said this didn't cause it. Why did this suddenly develop and howdo I know its not serious? Should I limit his activity, and does he need to see a Cardiologist just to be sure that the diagnosis is correct? I am an RN and when I listened to his heart at the time he was complaining, he had an extremely irregular HR with slow beats and then runs of tachycardia along with skipped beats. Later when he was okay, he had a HR of 64-87 still with the "skipped beats".

[Scott]

My daughter (almost 8) was recently (October 2000) diagnosed with Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia - RSA (apparently still a very common term and diagnosis).  She did not and never has complained of chest pain.  In fact she is very athletic and healthy.  According to my research RSA is very common and may even be an indication of "fitness". It seems that RSA and chest pains are two different things which do not necessarily correlate.  I'm just saying that in my daughter's case the RSA is not accompanied by other "symptoms" and I could easily see how her respiratory fitness resulting from her very regular soccer activities might lead to RSA.

[Actionad]

Your all a bunch of tossers...except of course for the worried mothers

[to Felecia from Joyce]

On this past Tue. I took my son to a new Dr. for a well check up and she is now sending him to a cardiologist because of his symptoms. Also because he has a cousin on his fathers side who was diagnosed with (White Parkinson Wolff) when she was about 16 years old. I am going to assume you have heard of that. well anyway she had to have surgery to correct it and the Dr. tells us that it occurs more often in children aged around that of my sons and older, and that it can run in families. We go the end of July to the heart Dr. Fingers crossed it's not true. I don't even know if you read my last post but if you did, I'm still thinking of you and your son, hope all is well. Joyce

[to Felecia from Joyce]

My son is 11 years old. About 6 months ago he had chest pain with shortness of breath and also felt very dizzy.It came on sudden one morning as he was getting ready to go to school. He continued to complain so I took him in to see his Dr. They did a quick check up on him and because he also has Ehlers Danlos syndrom which is a connective tissue disorder they decided to send him for a chest x-ray,it was fine. Although his syndrome is very mild it can effect the heart muscles, so I'm told. The concern I have is that after reading up a bit on different web sites that address causes of chest pain in children, I have come to learn that a chest x-ray would do little to nothing in offering an explanation into his symptoms. I was sent home after the x-ray and told it was probably gas. This never sat well with me. I often wonder should he have had some more work up. This was right in the middle of basketball season and I have heard of underlying heart problems surfacing during times of sports. He has had a couple of episodes the same prior to this but we did not take him to a doctor until the last time it happened because this last time it lasted much longer. I was told by my HMO I should find a new Dr. I am interested to know how your son is now, did he recieve further testing? and if yes, how it turned out. Joyce

[katnevada]

Dear Med student-
I am sure you were just trying to help, sorry people got offened by your reply. But I to have heard the term sinus arrythmia quite often, infact i heard it the other day from a doctor who couldn't have been more than 30 years old.
Maybe you just need to do a little more research before you reply.
Again, i am sure you were trying to help. Sorry if you were offended.

[concerned]

to felicia, i apologize for my behavior, and that of others...
i still feel that you need a second opinion though....at least some transtelophonic monitoring for 3 or 4 weeks to shed some light on the subject.
best wishes