congenitial heart defect and fast heart rate common?

[shelly45]

Has anyone has or had any problems with fast heart rate and had congenitial heart defect? I am 31 years old female and had surgery when I was 9 years old for asd and now having problems with my heart rate. It will go as high as 240's. I am on toprol xl 25mg as my cardio just increased it last week due to the fact my heart rate went high on low dose(1/2 tablet). My heart rate is still in the 90's or 100's on the 25mg but can not increase the toprrol more due the fact that I have low blood pressure problems.
I am to have stress test and holter on Monday to find what's causing this. He said that due to my congenitial heart defect it is typicial to happen. Hopefully he is able to prevoke it on Monday during the stress test so he can schedule ep study and fix this. When this happen it take the energy out of me and I just sleep most of the day. I do have heart disease in both sides of my family. I just want to be back to normal again. I am not in stress or consume any caffeine,alcohol or drugs. He mainly thinks that it has something to due with heart muscle or scarring or both somewhere in the area where surgery was done. I will post more on Monday.

[shelly45]

I had my stress test but did not pass. My heart rate went to 175 within a minute and had chest pressure so they had to stop. I have a 24 hour holter on now until tomorrow and my cardio will call me tomorrow to let me know what's going on. They want to upped my toprol xl to 50mg but can be scarry due my low pressure problem so we'll see tomorrow.

[va_tony]

You raise an interesting question about arrhythmias later in life following childhood surgery for asd.  I've wondered the same thing myself as my granddaughter had asd surgery when she was a few months old (now 3 and doing well). I recall researching the web back then and found references that indicate that the odds of svt do increase. I just googled asd arrhythmia and immediately found several sites that discuss the subject.  This first

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/19/1797

is a letter to the European Heart Journal. The author states in part:

"There is no doubt that atrial septal defect is associated with a highly increased risk of atrial fibrillation (and flutter) in the long run. However, even very early closure (during childhood) does not seem to change that.3There is a pattern, although at a different level, similar to that of the general population; the prevalence of atrial fibrillation increases exponentially with age. The study population of Roos-Hesselink had a mean age of 33 years at follow-up and there was a 3% prevalence of atrial fibrillation, similar to what was reported by Murphy et al in an equivalent age group.3This is a frequency around 100 times higher than found in the general population in those aged 45

[va_tony]

You raise an interesting question about arrhythmias later in life following childhood surgery for asd.  I've wondered the same thing myself as my granddaughter had asd surgery when she was a few months old (now 3 and doing well). I recall researching the web back then and found references that indicate that the odds do increase. I just googled asd arrhytmia and immediately found several sites that discuss the subject.  This first

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/19/1797

is a letter to the European Heart Journal. The author states in part:

"There is no doubt that atrial septal defect is associated with a highly increased risk of atrial fibrillation (and flutter) in the long run. However, even very early closure (during childhood) does not seem to change that.3There is a pattern, although at a different level, similar to that of the general population; the prevalence of atrial fibrillation increases exponentially with age. The study population of Roos-Hesselink had a mean age of 33 years at follow-up and there was a 3% prevalence of atrial fibrillation, similar to what was reported by Murphy et al in an equivalent age group.3This is a frequency around 100 times higher than found in the general population in those aged 45