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1347434 tn?1282591778

Event Monitor Protocols

Hi,

I hope to NOT become a regular here (LOL), but am just looking for some reassurance/opinions today.

This morning I was about 1/2 way through my morning coffee when I had what felt like two palpitations back to back.  I didn't so much feel them in my chest, but lots of pressure in the hollow of my throat.  I get this type of palp all the time and have always brushed it off as "normal" for me since they've never caught it on a monitor.  Today happens to be the very last day of my 30-day event monitor so I pressed the button.  

This "normal" but quite bumpy palp is actually nothing compared to the lengthy runs that drove me to the cardiologist in July.  And this is what scares me...

When I called the recording in, I expected to hear the normal beeps and screeches, but since it felt like two in a row, I figured it'd be double the "fun" sounds.  Instead, what went through was a very fast, regular beeping.  I counted 7 then a pause then 2 in a row then a pause then normal rhythm.  

After it went through the nurse/call center agent said, "well you definitely had a little bit of a run there. I'm faxing this over to your doctor right now." Then she verified my phone number and where I was calling from and told me my doctor might be contacting me.

My cardio didn't call me back, but then again, I have my 30 day follow up tomorrow afternoon.

Problem is, this is eating me alive.  

Anyone know what the protocol for this is?  If this had been from my atria would they have faxed it immediately?  I'm freaking out now thinking that this was NSVT and I had been doing so well convincing myself that all these freakish beats were what the cardio assumed they were (without seeing them) SVT and Afib.  He was ready to send me home without any testing last month because I'm only 35 and my June holter only showed 2 PAC's.   I felt like I had to practically beg to get an echo and a 30-day monitor because he was so certain (based on an ECG where I had no palps too).

If this was 7 beats long, then I can't even begin to fathom how many beats long my "big bad" episodes are -especially the ones that feel similarly but last for 20-45 seconds or so.  

Anyone got some advice - peace of mind - anything?  
4 Responses
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1347434 tn?1282591778
Following up:

Thanks for all your responses.  I am reassured - for the time being, LOL.  This whole heart thing has a way of getting me wound up and I have a hard time seeing things in a positive light.

Concerning my testing:

I had a complete echo on August 2nd, the results of which I won't get until this afternoon when I see my cardiologist.  I have no idea if he has received any reports from my event monitor (in particular the one from yesterday).  I plan to ask him, however.

When I first went in on July 24, all he looked at was a month old ECG and pronounced me "healthy".  He hadn't seen my holter results and hadn't done an echo.  When I pressed him on how he knew this he explained that according to the ECG I did not have LQT or WPW, and that my heart was structurally sound.  He said, "there are a lot of patients that I worry about, and you are not one of them.  I'm willing to bet that you're just experiencing some SVT or Afib - both of which are common in young people like yourself."  This was not entirely reassuring and I asked for an echo.  He brought me in for a mini-echo before I left to look for gross abnormalities and then scheduled a complete one.  The mini one "looked great" he said as he was in the room when the tech did it.  

The receptionist called me last night at 6:00pm to remind me of my appointment today.  It seems rather late for that, but I tried not to assume that it had anything to do with the "run" I'd recorded earlier.  

Bromley:

There has only been one person in my family (going back to great-grandparents) that has died of a heart attack and that was my g-grandmother and she was in her 70's.  No angina, no CAD, no SCD in anyone else.   My father, both his mother and father and many of my aunts on that side have MVP and irregular rhythms (not sure what though). The only sudden deaths were two male relatives, g-grandfather and g-uncle on my mom's side, who died of a ruptured thoracic aneurysm.  I believe Marfan's might have been suspected because they had characteristics of the disease.  

I guess I'll know more at 2:15pm.  And, I'll post so the results of the appointment.
Helpful - 0
86819 tn?1378947492
Well, I assume at this point you have had an ecg and that they did not see anything. This would probably rule out a serious forward conducting pathway combining WPW and an SVT such as Afib. However, I would really question a hypothesis of afib. If you had serious afib, you would probably be pretty miserable, and you did not describe this type of experience. What you did describe are rogue beats felt in  your throat. I could be wrong, but this does not sound like afib. Even if it was, is afib without forward conduction really that bad?

As for VT, a certain amount of it is present in the population, but at your age the rate of occurrence is probably not significantly better than the odds of winning the lottery. When it does occur, I believe it is more likely to be the benign form of it. Even if we hypothesize that you have VT and that it is not benign, I would be inclined to account in the overall statistics for the really bad polymorphic ones you read about where people have a serious genetic problem and just keel over, in some cases surviving anyway, so as to subtract that from the normal rate of occurrence because you have been alive for at least 36 years now, and didn't mention that you had siblings or blood relatives with these sorts of issues who had passed away.  In addition, you did not mention any cardiac pain, prior history of heart disease, HCM, scarring such as from an ablation gone bad or some other injury, nor other risk factors.  However, you indicated you are under the care of a cardiologist in the US who has seen your latest heart rhythm information and has elected not to get excited about it, and i suspect are somewhere where you can at least get to medical care if you need to.

I am not a doctor, but it sounds like you might be pretty safe... If you have serious chest pain etc, get to the hospital. Until then, dont worry. You will be OK!!!
Helpful - 0
1137980 tn?1281285446
Hi bypeep i had the same type of monitor that you did and went thru the same thing...no worries here my friend.  The call center is trained in the reading of the monitors and do exactly what they  said they would do was to get the tape to the doc and trust me they did or the company would be outta business.  If the doc didn't call you back don't worry about it because the first time mine happened he called me within 45 minutes and told me to go directly to the E,R, and the other two times i thought it happened i didn't hear a word and called back the call center and they said that what they saw and sent to the doc showed benign episodes and did not merit a return to the E,R, or the doc would have called immediately.  Trust me bad news comes very fast from heart docs and if you didn't hear anything it meant that he saw nothing life threatening or alarming and it may have been something benign...i would relax and like Ireneo says post after your appt. and let us know what the doc saw...its educational for all of us....
Helpful - 0
187666 tn?1331173345
I wish I could speed things along (no pun intended) so you could hear the answers you're waiting for. All I can say is that even if it was NSVT, 7 beats is not considered dangerous in a normal heart. Maybe that will help get you through the night.

It would have been nice to see your longer episodes on tape (that 45 second variety) but even they may have been nothing interesting. I've had 3 ablations and that's my "cured" variety of (atrial) tachy now. I rarely get a tachy time lasting 15 minutes, most are under a minute and some days I may have as many as 5 times in a day. But I'm considered healed and doing well. I feel good too (for my age). :-)

Do what you can to distract yourself this evening and I hope you get only good news tomorrow. Also hope you'll let us know what you find out.
Helpful - 0
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