My Poor Heart

[gabbytiffany]

episodes of SVT. Blood work and echo showed nothing strucually. I did have a pericardial effusion (500cc)but is gradually going away over the past 3 years on it's own. Previous irregular heart beats of pvc's w/brachycardia while having the effusion, cardiologist say it was unrealated, but since the effusion has gone down those irregular beats are almst nonexistant. Now I have episodes of SVT, usually only lasting a min or so and can stop them by laying down of left side or deep brealths. Could not stop this last time,lasted 2 + hours ended up going to ER. wanted to give medication, but asked how to stop on my own. Did a few Valsalva manuvers and finally stopped it.   WHY is this happening?  Had other irregular beats then effision around my heart now SVT's. What is wrong with me, why is this hsppening to my heart, there has to be a reason!!! HELP. I am living in fear of getting another attack and then possibly someday going into Afib.
Thanks

[dave1726]

   The only thing I would ask is if you know what the cause of your pericardial effusion was, or if it was idiopathic. If it was associated with a viral infection that caused an acute myocarditis or pericarditits situation there may be some left over fibrosis or general inflammation which needs to be ablated, and may be the source of your current SVT. Otherwise, it may very well be that you simply have two unrelated situations. The SVT, if it has been confirmed as being SVT is benign, and going through an EP study would not only help you get it ablated, but they would also be able to try and map where any other arrhythmias are coming from. It could very well be that you also have a spot in your ventricles that is irritable and needs to be ablated. Both could be totally unrelated to the pericardial effusion in terms of causation, but there may be a correlation in that it took having the pericardial effusion to trigger the PVC's, which you had a susceptibility to to begin with. Research is finding that some people may be more prone to arrhythmias than others, even when they have an otherwise healthy heart, and if you expose such a heart to certain triggers benign arrhythmias will occur. After all lots of people have hormonal problems, or exercise a lot, or have lots of stress, or eat spicy foods, or, etc, etc, fill in the blank, but they don't all get palpitations. The people who do often are the ones with that predisposition. Benign conditions are actually a lot like malignant conditions in this sense. Say, for example you have a family predisposition to a certain kind of cancer. You can take steps to lower your chances of getting it, and then you might not. Same thing with benign arrhythmias. In your case an unrelated disease triggered the benign condition to come out, or at least that would be my guess. In the same way people with PVC's are probably more likely to have SVT. It's a correlation,even though the two entities are separate and do not cause each other.

[MichelleP_3811]

Like Tom said, it sounds like you have an accessory pathway svt.  I had one called avnrt.  It is not life threatening and it does get triggered by pacs or pvcs though it is not the same condition.  As you age it is likely you will get more and more episodes as they will not go away since the extra fiber will always be present.  I don't believe that you would be more likely to develop afib because of it more so than anyone else who could develop afib unless you have repeated long episodes that you do not get resolved.  Also as Tom said, there is generally a fairly easy fix with an EP study and ablation.  It sounds a lot scary than it actually is.  If you want to read about mine you can click on my name and read my journal entry.  It is helpful to actually be more active and have more episodes then a rare one here and there if you do the ablation because the easier it is to get you into your svt the easier it is for the EP to ablate it and correct the issue.  I had it done last year at this time and have not had an episode of tachycardia since when I was having them at least every other week.  Mostly a minute or so like you but occasionally they would be longer lasting a few hours or so.  If this option has not been presented to you I would ask about it though it is fairly expensive so you will need good insurance to cover it if you choose to give it a try.  At least that is the case if you are in the States.  Beyond that it is generally a very successful procedure with very minimal risks.  There are some but in general you don't get better odds at a cure than a cardiac ablation for an accessory pathway svt.  Though if you do proceed it is likely your pvcs and any pacs will continue.  They have for me and actually seemed to become more frequent after the ablation but that was just because my heart had been through a lot and needed to heal.  I am at a point now where I don't get them near as much and I don't barely feel them as well.  Anyways, so long as you are diligent about managing your episodes when they occur your svt should not cause any undue harm to your heart however you may want to consider an ablation at some point in the future to get the condition correct for good.  Take care and keep us posted on how you are doing.

[tom_h]

The heart is of course a muscle, with cells that are ever regenerating.  Somewhere  in that process, you've developed an area of muscle tissue that has sufficient conduction to support an alternate or "accessory" pathway.  While this is something to be monitored, it's not somethign that's going to kill you.  Take it from someone who had 54 years of SVT, 3-5 times per month.

You don't mention if you're on any medication; are you?  Does your cardiologist have an EKG trace of your heart in SVT as proof of what you're experiencing?

Regular episodes of SVT are easily found during an electrophysiology procedure and can be eliminated.  Many of us here have had it done.  Has anyone spoken to you about this procedure?