Had my consult with the cardiologist for my SVT

[cvan1980]

Backstory refresher:

2 days after Christmas I was laying in bed with my husband, flipped over to show him something on my tablet, and my SVT kicked in.  Even laying down on the bed it was 150+ and if I got up to walk around at all, it was up above 170.  I've had SVT for over 15 years, a time or two per year, max, so I started attempting my normal maneuver which usually works.  Normally I would bend over, put my head between my knees, and take deep breaths.  Well, none of that worked.  A few minutes after the SVT started, I had an urge to have a bowel movement.  I thought, good, maybe this will help it stop (had that happen once before and it worked).  Well, it didn't.  Tried just laying in bed trying to relax.  Didn't work.  Drank a couple giant glasses of ice water and bent forward.  That didn't work.  Got a really uneasy feeling about that particular time and told my husband it seemed to just be pounding harder and harder and that I really wanted to get checked out by the ER.  So we go in and I had to get the "doom medicine."  It did bring the abnormal rhythm down but of course I had a ton of anxiety by that point so they gave me some sort of anti anxiety med as well.  Heartrate only got down to about 120 resting but it didn't have that weird Tachycardic feeling that I'm used to so I went home.  Laid in bed for a couple hours trying to shake off the events of the day, and nothing happened after that.

Had my first appointment with a cardiologist today.  He had looked at the charts from the ER and told me I had AVNRT, and told me that this was the most common SVT that exists and it is non life threatening.  He told me I basically had a birth defect of the heart that gave me an extra electrical pathway that sometimes kicks in after a skipped beat and the electrical pattern goes in a circle or something like that.  Anyway he gave me a few more vagal maneuvers that I could try when it does it again, because he said it will never go away (I figured).  He then said that I could go to some docs in a bigger city near here that could do an ablation and I would be cured of it for good and not have to worry about it anymore.  I told him I had read about ablations on this message board and asked if it was something that really took like 5 hours to do.  He said NO, NO WAY!  He said for my condition it should not take more than an hour, maybe 2 hours if they're slow in prepping me or whatever.  He said mine is just a really easy fix.  Then he told me to quit reading message boards because its like looking for how to fix a Chevy and looking up the instructions for a BMW and seeing how that gets fixed instead of a Chevy.  LOL.  (I love message boards and I love the good advice and support!)  Anyway I was really glad to hear that mine is very treatable (he said 95% success rate) and the risks are soooo small he said.  Still though, they'd be sticking something in me and going right there poking around my heart!  That does scare me, I can't help it!

He told me that I didn't have to make up my mind right away and anytime I felt ready to have it done, I could have it done.  I feel really relieved about that.  I still feel like a bit of a ticking time bomb, but I just dont' feel mentally ready to go through with the surgery yet.  So, I think I'm going to continue to exercise and strengthen my heart, as well as try to eat healthier and lose weight.  If that doesn't help or if the episodes become too frequent, I will get it done.

[tom_h]

I can appreciate you hesitancy to getting it fixed.  That one of the reasons why my SVT lasted 54 years.  Mine weren't self converting, so once started, they would run on unless in intervened and halted it.  Because I was successful at always converting them, I just put the alternative out of my mind.  I was going to a cardilologist for PVC clusters, and he put me on a 30 day monitor.  During that period I had 3 SVT events which was about average for me in a month long period.  While I took these as normal events, my cardiologist was alarmed.  A 60 year old person with a heart rate nearing 250 was not a good thing he said. While I am still athletic and very active, he was concerned about how well my hgeart would react as I aged beyond my 70's.  So I admit I was sort of led down the electrophysiology study path by him.  I met with two different EP docs, and chose one who was all business, confident he could get it, and was not hesitant on telling me his EP history, success and failures.  He also used general anesthesia in as many patients as he can, so I was under for the entire procedure and remember nothing; a very positive experience!

I think you have to be fed up with SVT interrupting you life.  I can't imagine multiple trips to the ER other people have had.  If that occured, I would have been in years ago.  But since I could slow mine down, I guess I just lived with it.  There are plenty of us on the forum who would more than happy to give you some cyber hand holding, and walk you thru the process right up to the morning of your procedure. It's really quite easy.

[abc85]

I also had an ablation for AVNRT and mine took about 4-5 hours although I was asleep for it so it felt like blinked and it was over.  Easy recovery and overall not too bad.  It has helped somewhat for me although I have some other electrical issues going on (not a result of the ablation).  Certainly would be worth a try to have it done. I was told there's about a 1% chance of a complication with them.

[tom_h]

Your physician told you the facts.  The time you spend on the cath lab table varies widely.  Quite frankly, i think it was irresponsible of him to guesstimate the time required to take care of your problem.  Mine was a little over 4 hours of actual table time.  They won't know precisely where to pin point the ablation until they go in and map your heart first.

It's "surgery" in the roughest sense as no cutting is actually done.  The insertion is done by puncture.  Consequently, heal time is a matter of days.  Within 2 days, my punctures on either side were nothing more than red dots.

Regarding,methods to slow it.  You can try head stands against a wall.  This is very effective for some.  I use Valsalva by sitting on a staircase, crunching up, took a shallow breath, and bore down, tightening my diaphragm, and imagined squeezing my lungs against mt heart.  This proved successful 100% throughout the 54 years of my SVT.  I hope you decide to getting fixed.  It's a great feeling to be free of it after a lifetime of dealing with it, and having it disrupt my life.

[MichelleP_3811]

I had avnrt until I had it ablated at 44 years old.  It really was a piece of cake in an out within a couple of hours though I was fairly active so it was easy for the EP to induce the tachycardia.  That would be my main concern with you is that you aren't frequent enough but your doctor is correct that it is generally one of the easiest svts to cure and one with one of the best cure rates.  In making the car reference he very likely was referring to someone speaking of afib which is a totally different svt and has a completely different set up when they go to ablate so I could see his concern about you getting misinformed.   But he is correct in saying you will not get rid of the svt.  

I had a similar mindset thinking I could exercise and it would go away but it really doesn't work like that.  You have an extra muscle fiber that you can't get rid of without them going in and breaking the connection.  But what I will say is exercising will help you tolerate the episodes much better when you do have them.  Before I started to exercise I had to lay down when I had an episode, after I started working out regularly I could almost function normal though I always became short of breath and couldn't stand for very long but the point is getting your heart in better condition will help your situation no matter what but it won't cure you just so you know.  

I actually wished I had been informed of the ectopic beats being a big trigger for them.  I didn't know I had them and since they are a trigger I rather wished I could have gotten my stomach checked out first before I did my ablation to see if it would help lessen the amount of episodes I was having which was becoming weekly.   I get a lot of ectopics after I eat so my stomach was an issue.  But in the whole scheme of things you likely won't be able to fully get rid of those either so you will always be prone to having episodes but if they are rare and you are able to get them to stop on your own then your heart isn't in any danger from having the svt.  So I agree that you don't need to rush in to get it fixed.  Take your time and go when it feels right.  For me my svt was disrupting my life so that was the main reason, otherwise I would not have done it.  Well obviously, I completely ignored it until my 40s not even bothering to get it checked out that is how little it worried me.  Anyways, it is good to know what you are dealing with so you know what to do to take care of yourself and your heart.  If you have any questions just let us know and if you wanted to read about an ablation you can click on my name and read my journal entry.  I was completely terrified to do the ablation but came out of it wondering why I worried so much.  But again, I don't think you are at a point of needing to rush in I only mention it so you can check it out if you wanted to.  Anyways, glad to hear you have some answers.  Take care and keep us posted on how you are.