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Worried about my ablation for SVT
Hi everyone. I'm 18.yrs old, I'm having SVT for 10 yrs now. My RFA is scheduled on 22. july Procedure will be done in St.Bartholomews Hospital (London,UK). I'm having about 0-5 SVT episodes per year. I'm a bit nervous now, but I know that I will be so nervous and anxious when the date will come up.. In Pre-Assessement doctor said, that I would be under a light sedation, so, that means I will feel all the catheters going up through my vein? How will they force my heart to start race? With adrenaline or by making an extra heartbeat or what ? I'm worried that I will be able to feel how the palpitations will start and I will be able to feel how they will burn the extra pathway or damaged cells. As Luvyalab mentioned about urinary catheter.. does it hurts when they are applying it?
Many thanks for your replies in advance! Arthur
Many thanks for your replies in advance! Arthur
Best Answer
Thanks for your post. I like the lion senerio, I think it started out as a lion cub and now has grown into that roaring lion. Will be glad to have the lion tamed.
I started having SVT before I'd ever had any surgeries. At first they were quite frequent and I was put on meds. Actually, I was first diagnosed with Atrial fribrillation so I don't know even now if that was a misdiagnosis or if I had SVT then because it feels the same. I hated the med so I went off and discovered vagal maneuvers that I used for years to convert back to normal rythm. Some years I had no episodes, and other years more often. I've tried to figure out triggers througout the years and tried to avoid certain things, always stressful trying to figure it out! Toward the end of last year I started having more attacks but could still convert them back. Early this year I had a few attacks that I couldn't vagal right out of and that really scared me. So back to the doctor and was finally correctly diagnosed and had the ablation.
SVT from my understanding is something we are born with, an extra pathway somewhere in the heart. Some people can have the extra pathway all of their lives and never experience SVT. Others like the ones in this thread are the lucky ones who get to experience the extra pathway through SVT. In our sense of trying to understand this, it is only natural to try to figure out what causes this. I felt like stress, caffeine, krill oil, I even wondered about shrimp for a while, etc: For you, you're wondering if it was the surgeries. They possibly helped SVT show its ugly head. I read in another post a wonderful description of living with SVT that compared it to a lion in the basement just waiting for someone to open the door so it could come roaring out. That hit home with me and that's exactly what SVT is!!!! The ablation gets rid of the lion. I still worry about triggers because I've programmed myself for so long to do so. I still have PAC's that led to the SVT and I do try and avoid things that cause those, but it is such a relief to know that they won't lead to SVT.
Good luck with your procedure and glad to hear you're in good hands. That makes all the difference in the world.
SVT from my understanding is something we are born with, an extra pathway somewhere in the heart. Some people can have the extra pathway all of their lives and never experience SVT. Others like the ones in this thread are the lucky ones who get to experience the extra pathway through SVT. In our sense of trying to understand this, it is only natural to try to figure out what causes this. I felt like stress, caffeine, krill oil, I even wondered about shrimp for a while, etc: For you, you're wondering if it was the surgeries. They possibly helped SVT show its ugly head. I read in another post a wonderful description of living with SVT that compared it to a lion in the basement just waiting for someone to open the door so it could come roaring out. That hit home with me and that's exactly what SVT is!!!! The ablation gets rid of the lion. I still worry about triggers because I've programmed myself for so long to do so. I still have PAC's that led to the SVT and I do try and avoid things that cause those, but it is such a relief to know that they won't lead to SVT.
Good luck with your procedure and glad to hear you're in good hands. That makes all the difference in the world.
Yes, physicians that looked at my EKG would usually say that it was a pretty typical waveform. My cardiologist though he saw a telltale delta wave that's indicitive of WPW. My EP looked at me and thought it was the same thing. So going into the cath lab, the team knew where to look first. They were going after an AVRT and were pretty sure it was WPW. But after mapping it, what was though to be WPW was actually CMT, Circus Movement Tachycardia, a concealed AVRT that's in the same family as WPW. So don't be afraid to ask questions. I think my EP was delighted to see a patient that had a rudementary idea of what was wrong with their heart and what he was going to do to fix it.
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I'm 59 and have had SVT (AVNRT)since my mid 30's. I just had an ablation a month ago while under light sedation. I thought it was all very interesting. I wanted to be an observer rather than the one on the table. To answer your question about feeling the catheter go up you veins...I didn't feel a thing. The only thing I felt was the shot to deaden the catheter site and that was more like a sting that hurt for a very short time. That was the only pain during the entire procedure.
They do something called pacing your heart to create the SVT. I've read that they use adrenaline but I don't know for sure how they did mine. I felt and heard my heart on the monitors starting to get harder and faster and irregular. I heard the doctor talking about inducing PVCs. They asked if exercise was a trigger and I told them no, but stress was biggest trigger and too much caffeine caused it. I was partly awake when I felt the tachycardia and I was so relieved because I was afraid they wouldn't get the SVT to know where to burn. It was a weak one compared to the ones I had so it didn't scare me at all. Afterwards, I found out it was 180 bpm. Mine were always 240-250.
As far as feeling the burn, I did feel that. I only had one burn on the slow pathway in the AV node. It didn't hurt, just felt like a warming sensation. I let them know I felt it and they must have given me more sedation because I don't remember much after that. They will sedate you as needed so you are very relaxed through the whole thing or asleep.
I didn't have a urinary catheter and I wish I had. You have to lay flat for 4 hours afterward so if your procedure is very long and then you add 4 hours afterward, it'll be worth not having the pain from a full bladder like I had.
I've been to the dentist with a lot more pain and stress than this procedure. When you think how invasive it is, it really is amazing that it all goes so smoothly. I was told the average time for the procedure is 4 hours. Mine was only 2 1/2 hours and felt like only 1/2 hour. I was really surprised at how easy it was.
I found a youtube that was interesting on the procedure for SVT. It is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ4qTSAOvbc&feature=related
Good luck! You'll be so glad when its over and you don't have to worry about those anymore.
Keep us posted.