svt symptoms coming back after ablation

[ekg91]

Hello all,
I am 18 years old and had a catheter ablation done a little over 3 months ago. I had the symptoms of a racing heart rate and "flopping" feeling of the heart. No one could pin-point why this just started happening to me but at times i felt as though i was going to collapse. My heart would sometimes feel as though it was stopping and i couldn't catch my breathe. this gradually over time became worse starting at it being bad just walking to class and up stairs and progressing to rapidly increasing to about 150bpm due to getting up from bed.My cardio put me on an event motor and at one point caught my heart rate at 300bpm. He then referred me to my electro-physiologist. He then conducted the catheter ablation and told me that there was an extra release of adrenaline causing the rapid increase and extra impulses and that things should be working fine now.
About 2 or 3 weeks ago i started feeling the same racing heart and flopping feeling start back up. I had gone back to my previous activities after the surgery and started living the life i used to with exercising once a day and being my bubbly active self. Now my svt has come back and is progressively getting worse again. Now I've heard that sometimes the surgery's don't work all the way the first time but i didn't know if the symptoms went away and came back like they did with me. I was completely terrified the first time i had the surgery and i would love to avoid it again. I'm more worried that it just wont work again. Any advice would be great. I have an appt with my electro-physiologist this coming week and was just wondering if there was any advice anyone could give me. It would be much appreciated.
Thank You

[ekg91]

Thank you both for writing back. It is great to know that you guys know what I'm going through. You definitely helped calm me down a little. I will make sure i update you on my condition once i see the doc. Thanks again. You don't know how much this helped me.

[cindy707]

I am so sorry that you are going thru all of this.  Remember with ablations it takes up to 6 months for your heart to settle down after what it went thru with the ablation.  For most people they are successful and you just have to be patient and wait for your heart to re establish a normal pattern of electrical activity.  However...........there is a fail rate among some people and most docs will tell you if its a fail it usually happens within the first 90 days of the procedure but this may not be your case at all.  Sometimes people get what is called "ghost" residuals from the procedure and events will randomly pop up...your heart is still adapting to being poked, prodded and penetrated during the ablation and is still mad at you no doubt.  Swelling of the heart occurs after the ablation causing the electrical activity to flow up around and over until the heart returns to its normal status.  Only the doc can tell you if this is your case tho but i seriously would not be too worried yet....if it is getting progressive on a daily basis them yep call your doc who you are going to see anyway this week but if it is sporatic you may very well just be adjusting.  Sometimes a tune up may be needed because they may have missed a spot or couldn't ablate everything they needed too but i can tell you from first hand experience i think the worst part of the procedure was the before and after situation...before you are freaked out because of what is happening and the after is almost as bad because you feel like you are sitting on a time bomb waiting for it to all come back and that you went thru all of that for nothing and it might be worse this time around...it is natural to feel like you are...many of us have been there and done that....good luck at the docs ekg and please let us know what they said.....

[ireneo]

I'm sorry your PSVT came back. Sometimes they ablate one spot only to have another spot flare up. I've had 3 ablations because the first time they thought they got it under control but it came back, the 2nd time they knew it was still there but I had been under for 6 hours and the 3rd time they did their best. I still have PSVT but it's so minor (lasting less than a minute) that it's easy to live with it, just a nuisance, not a big hindrance like before.

I'm glad you're going to see the EP again. I remember the first ablation as being really scary. The next 2 times weren't as bad because I knew what to expect. That helps a lot. See what the doctor has to say. It sounds like another procedure may be in the near future for you. But your tachy is too much to just live with it. Let us know what you hear.