I'm in desperate need of some advice and some information.
Heres my story...
I'm 25 year old female. I have no weight issues or other health issues. 3 1/2
years ago, I was in school to become a emergency medical technician. While in
the process of learning to read ecg's, we were practicing on each other and we
noticed that I was having pvc's but I could not feel them at all. I printed the
strip and took it to my dr. She sent me for an echocardiogram which was
essentially normal but showed that I had "mild pulmonary insufficiency, probably
physiological due to my age". Nothing of concern. The holter monitor showed
that I had just over 6300 pvc's in 24 hours with no runs of vtach, no couplets
or anything. I could not even feel that I was having them. The verdict from
the cardiologist was that they were benign and I would continue my life and
probably never have a problem with them but if I became symptomatic or started
feeling them, then they would consider putting me on a low dose betablocker.
Now fast forward 3 years. Up until this point, no symptoms, no problems. In
November 2008, I started occasionally having episodes where I would have
pressure in my chest for a about 90 seconds and then have chest pain for about a
minute. After this happened a few times, I went to my family dr. She checked
my blood work for diabetes, thyroid, kidney problems etc. She also checked my
adrenal gland to make sure it wasn't overproducing adrenalin which would
indicate a tumor. This came back normal. She then referred me back to my
cardiologist. While I was waiting to get an appt with the cardiologist, I had an
episode with the chest pain but ended up losing conciousness. This was in
January. I had a holter test which showed that I only had a few pvc's in the
whole day. I then wore an event loop monitor for two weeks. It showed that I
would have occasional episodes of sinus tachycardia with rates up to 180bpm in
casual relaxed situations. There was one event that they thought maybe was
atrial fibrillation but it was not conclusive. I had a treadmill stress test
that showed a few random pvc's and one couplet. The thing that was actually
concerning to them was that although my heart rate was between 70-80bpm at rest
before the test, within 3 minutes of walking at the slowest pace on the
treadmill, my heart rate was 160bpm. Then after the test, I sat down while they
continued to monitor the ecg and said that as soon as my heart rate was below
100bpm I would be allowed to leave. 30-40 minutes later, my heart rate was
still between 130-140bpm although I felt completely fine. Then in April, I was
at work, had an episode of chest pain, passed out in front of my coworkers. I
was breathing and had a pulse but I was unconcious for about 5 minutes in after
being down. They called 911 and I was taken by ambulance to the hospital, the
ecg showed that in one out of the 12 leads, it looked like I was alternating
between atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter but at that time I was not
symptomatic and since it wasn't showing in all of the leads the cardiologist
there felt like it wasnt' a true reading. Now to June, again at work as a
receptionist, same scenerio. I ended up losing consiousness again, my coworkers
caught me and laid me down onto my stomach. At that time I was breathing
irregularly and had a pulse. They rolled me over onto my back and at that point
I turned blue. When they checked for a pulse, they checked 3 times and couldn't
find one they started cpr. After my coworkers doing cpr, I regained
conciousness. I was taken by ambulance to a different hospital where they
admitted me. I had a chest xray which showed broken ribs from the cpr but no
visibly enlargement of the heart. A CT scan of my lungs to evaluate whether I
had a blood clot and that my lungs were perfusing well, this came back normal.
The echocardiogram came back normal. I had a MRI of my heart which showed no
structural defect but that the function was at the lower end of normal. I went
for an EP catheter study which came back normal but again it was made note of my
unusually fast heart rate. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks, hooked up to the
telemetry cardiac monitor constantly. Nothing was seen except again my heart
rate. Around 75 bpm on average at rest. As soon as I would start walking even
at a slow pace, my heart rate would be 130-140bpm. Also, apparantly while I was
sleeping it would occasionally go down to around 30bpm and then a few minutes
later would be over 100bpm. Never once did I feel anything out of the ordinary.
The cardiologist felt that all my tests came back fine and they felt that I was
probably having vasovagal fainting. I've never fainted before from any of the
usual triggers. I don't feel woozy from standing up too fast, or the sight of
blood or anything. I also know that when you faint, you should wake up within
seconds of being flat, you shouldn't turn blue and you should still have a
pulse. The cardiologist said that it is possible that I had a vasovagal faint
which made my blood pressure plummet making it hard to feel a pulse. Apparantly
it is not unheard of to turn blue even during regular fainting and with a pulse.
I still wasn't convinced. They discharged me with no further instruction other
than I wasn't allowed to drive for 3 months assuming that nothing else happened
in the meantime and that they were going to set up a tilt table test to test my
vasovagal reflex. Basically try to make me faint by moving me from a flat
position to a standing position and give me some drugs to increase my heartrate.
I did that test today which came back normal and I did not faint. Now I have no
answers and am worried about carrying on my life wondering when am I going to
need cpr again and this time will I live. I have 2 small children that I am
worried about being alone with now. I did some research on the internet and
came across sick sinus syndrome and specifially bradycardia-tachycardia syndrome
which falls under sick sinus syndrome. Seems to me that I have all the symptoms
of this disorder which is treated with drugs, ICD or pacemakers. I don't know
if there is something specific they are looking for to make this diagnosis that
I don't have or why have they not considered this. Do any of you have sick
sinus syndrome and if so how were you diagnosed. Now I am at home, with no
instruction on what to do to prevent these episodes from happening, what to do
if they do happen again, and really no indication whether any further tests will
be done. What should I do now?