SVT and AFib

[beisenbp]

I was diagnosed late last year with SVT.  I have always had palpitations that no doctor ever seemdd too concerned about but rather suddenly, they got very bad and I was near-fainting regularly.  The monitor showed SVT and I had an ablation within a week.  I was thrilled.  No more palpitations for several months.  Now, 10 months later, I am having the same symptoms (well they seem the same to me).  My cardiologist put the monitor on me and within a day she told me that I don't have SVT again but now I have AFib.   I am still in the testing phase because I have no risk factors for AFib so they are trying to find out what is causing this.  I am amazed at this information and wonder if anyone else has had both SVT and AFib?

[roadrunner54]

What procedure did you have ?ty

[beisenbp]

I guess I was confusing.  I do not take coumadin and don't ever want to if I can help it.  I do take aspirin (and have for a long time just for general heart purposes).  I am not taking anything specific related to the afib.  I have a bunch of questions for my EP when I see him in a couple of weeks.  I hope I get enough time with him to get them answered.  

[Jerry_NJ]

Yes, coumadin.  Your first post talked about "risk factors" and the only connection I can make is with AFib one "counts" risk factors on determining what is necessary to mitigate clot/strok risk.  Risk factors include: age, type/frequency of AFib, and other factors I can't think of.  It is my understanding that young people are frequently put on only aspirin, no coumadin (I take bot but I have several risk factors).  In fact if there is a chance of some runs of AFib I'd expect you to be at least on aspirin... perhaps you are still on coumadin because of risk factors.

[beisenbp]

Here is an update........I had an ablation for the afib two weeks ago.  I have to say that the SVT ablation was a piece of cake in comparison.  This was a more complicated procedure both in the testing ahead of time and the anesthesia, as well as the procedure.  That being said, I am glad it's over and so far the episodes are very short and infrequent.  They say it takes awhile for them to go totally away.  I would do it over again if it means I don't have to take medication (especially coumadin).  

[beisenbp]

Thanks all for your responses.  I have an appointment at the end of October with my new EP and I'll let you know what he says.

[annie1724]

Yes they do feel awful....afib even worse than svt.  I'll be interested to hear what your ep says about ablating both.

[beisenbp]

I had my thallium stress test today and I have SVT again and Afib.  The test itself made my heart to into episodes.  I am going to talk to an EP about getting both ablated at once.  I don't want to stay on medication my whole life, and I don't want to live with episodes.  They feel horrible to me.

[JoKelly]

I too had SVT diagnosed a few months ago after many presentations at the doctors with palpitations and told not to worry.  The last ER episode I wore a monitor on the ward for four days and was told I had A Fib and not SVT, despite the tracings now looking completely different. I reverted spontaneously to sinus after three days.  Can't find where I read it, but I definitely saw on the web that SVT usually becomes A Fib eventually if untreated.  I too think I have both as I am awakened regularly in the middle of the night by a really fast drumroll rhythm which lasts for about 10-20 seconds.  I'm getting used to it!

[beisenbp]

There is so much I don't understand yet.  I didn't know there was an atrial tachycardia as well as an atrial fibrillation.  I am having my thallium stress test tomorrow and am hoping to learn that everything is fine.

[annie1724]

I also have had both svt and afib.  I had svt for over 25 years, always stopped on its own, never hospitalized for it.  Then suddenly last spring I had a very weird (to me) episode that would not stop.  I ended up in the er and was told I had afib.  I told the nurse, no, I have svt!  And she replied, well you have afib too.  UGH!  My episode lasted 12 hours, then converted on iv (no cardioversion.)  My ep said that sometimes afib can be triggered by an episode of svt, and strongly urged me to have an ablation. (he had been suggesting that for the past 15 years, but I was too afraid to do it!)

So now the choice to have an ablation for the svt was a no-brainer.  I asked about trying to ablate the afib at the same time, but since I had only had one episode, he felt the risks outweighed the benefits at this point.  Plus he was hopeful that ablating the svt would in effect cure the afib.  So the svt ablation was a success, but it's still a wait and see on the afib(and I amterrible at that.)

The other downer for me is that I now have atrial tachycardia.  I wore a 48 hour monitor and was told the original svt is cured, but now there's the a tach.   And the other bad part is that my ep said a tacch is a precursor for a fib, so now I have that to worry about.  I see my ep in a few weeks, so we'll see where we go from there.

[beisenbp]

Thanks for the input.  What I have learned so far is that there are a lot of variations to this problem and it does seem to take time time to figure out what is causing it, what works and what treatments to consider.  I am just on the beginning of this adventure.  

[debbier]

Hi,

I had an ablation 8 months ago for Afib and SVT, I also had palpitations (PVC) 24/7.
The ablation took care of the afib and SVT, they could not ablate my pvc's they were too close to my artery.  PVC's can return just like svt and afib, they can make another pathway and boom there back.  You can have a healthy heart and have afib.  I started with Aifb out of the blue, had every heart test under the sun and found nothing.  Its an electrical issue.  Good Luck getting it all figured out.

[PikaPika88]

Let wait and see how many people will jump in and mention they have A-Fib after the ablation?  I'm curious about this.........  My EP is expected I'll get A-Fib later after the ablation.  I think it is related to ablation, all in the EP's head but not telling to the patient until it happened!

[CFS56]

I have had episodes of SVT since I was in my early 20s.  In my 40s I started having problems with atrial and ventricular premature beats as well as the SVT.  I had to go to the hospital a couple of times because I couldn't stop it on my own.   Then last year I went into afib a couple of times.  Second time landed me in the hospital where they did all the obligatory tests and told me my heart was fine.  You absolutely do not have to have something wrong with your heart to have afib.  I'm assuming that's what you mean by risk factors.  But you do need to go through all the testing to be sure.  I am convinced that my episodes were caused by stress.  I have been doing well on beta blockers and nobody has suggested ablation to me, guess because so far I'm pretty well controlled with meds.  I have my fingers crossed I stay that way because I'm going through another very stressful time now.

[cindy707]

I can answer yes to that one and add a couple more things to the SVT and atrial fib.  The ablation for atrial fib is the same for the SVT so its really not that big of a thing.  I had both taken care of at the same time to just get it over with.  It is alot more common than you think to have both so i would say don't stress over it.  There are other things that can be done with atrial fib thru beta blockers that work pretty well unless you want to be med free but to this day i still take a low dose of antenolol as a safety net for myself and on Oct. 5th will be my four year anniversary after the procedure.  Personally out of the two i thought the SVT was alot worse than the atrial fib and i had a pretty severe case of it with my pulse rate moving into the 300's believe it or not.  I don't understand what the "risk factors" are that the doc is speaking of....atrial fib is electrical based and is pretty much handled the same way the SVT was thru zapping a specific area and with a fib they try to re route the pathway that has veered off of course....if you breezed the ablation you will no doubt breeze another if you choose to go that route again...good luck