Heart Rhythm Conditions – Welcome to the group

i am 75 yrs old .i had an excellent mitral valve repair by mayo clinic st marys hospital in rochestor minnasota.. though i continue with tachacardia problems

I have episodes of debilitating, strong, chest-thumping PVCs that last for hours. I do not know what triggers them but they usually come several hours after exercise. I get them about once a month. I know stress can be a factor so I try to stay calm. They get better in a day or two, tapering off gradually. During this time my BP goes up to 155/95 for the whole period (normally it is controlled) I take sotolol 120mg 2x daily along with losartan. I have talked to no one who had this problem before,

Diagnosed with atrial flutter or atrial fib in 2015. Prescribed Pradaxa as a blood thinner. During the interim time until now, never an "episode" or other; cannot feel any issues with heart beat as I am very active surfer and general physical outside guy. Having deployed working the wars, I have been near various explosions and direct gun fire. These actions always raise blood pressure and as I am told can cause erratic heart beat. Had a full echo cardio gram and all the other tests..all came back very normal (includes blood pressure in valves and such).

Anyone out there have a similar condition with no daily or routine issues with variable heart beat? Thanks and happy holidays...RH/Florida

Hi Becky , I thought I mentioned it, but maybe not. My Heart got so bad and the pathways were not reachable so the only option was transplant.
The medication keeping me alive the IV type of Amiodroine had to be at a high level and it ended up becoming Toxic to me. Realize that towards the end I was getting shocked so much I actually had to seek counseling to try and deal with a form of PTSD against my pacemaker. I would be in anticipation of the next shock that it can actually put you into an arrhythmia just thinking about it. It's amazing how the stress of a medical condition can really actually make the condition worse. So I did see a counselor for a while and it helped a lot. But my heart wasn't getting any better.
As for my condition it wasn't hereditary as I had a great heart up until I had a bad flu virus. It was in 2008 and it caused the sac around my heart to fill up with fluid. Which due to the fluid the heart had to try and beat against all that fluid . This caused the heart to get enlarged which is not good for a heart. This is what caused the bad pathways to grow and with the thick walls hard to get to. With the many ablations, the pacemaker and medications it did give me a pretty good life from 2008 until 2017. But it was after the last of about 8 ablations that the doctors recommended transplant. That was December of 2017 my last ablation and after the approval process I was put on the list the last week of December.
Well the good Lord was looking out for me and on Jan 5th 2018 only 5 days on the list I got a new Heart. So now I did have to retire but am very happy with my life now and pretty much do all the things I enjoy. I do hope you are successful with your journey and can get the help you need. Don't get discouraged and it's not a bad thing to get some counseling if things seem to get stressful. I know even during the transplant period I was glad to have some clergy and councilling as I also for a period of time was concerned about the fact that for me to live ment someone else had to die. But that got worked our also. I can't thank the folks at Mayo for all they did for me and they are such a Blessing, But I also know God is watching over me also.
So Becky I hope you discover the reasons for your heart condition
Blessing

Thank you for this opportunity. Until the Pfizer double jab I was self described as "obnoxiously healthy." Now? A-fib and blood clots brought on by loss of electrolytes due to chronic diarrhea.

A legit world-wide study, collecting data from dozens of legit sources, verified there is a worldwide spike in hypersensitivity to food. The vax with the highest percentage of cases? Pfizer! So I'm NOT imagining the connection.

I have been on a quest for the past 18 months and experienced some success. Thanks to the Heart Rhythm forums, I have learned about magnesium taurate. Unlike other forms of Mg, not a laxative--which is the LAST thing I need.

I promise if I experience success, I'll share the good news!

Oh, keeping my blood clots under control with 1/2 of an adult aspirin every evening. Food hypersensitivity manifesting as diarrhea up to 9 times a day? Magnesium deficiency? A-fib? Blood clots? Yep, they all go hand in hand in hand in hand! Gotta break the circle!

Dana, with the information you gave me, you have a 1 in a million heart too. With yours however, you have multiple pathways I assume are just in the Right Atrial chamber and the SA Node (the heart’s natural pacemaker) is involved. You didn’t mention if the pathways attached to the AV Node(the Command Center) that tells the Right and Left Ventricles to contract and pump the chamber full of blood. You do have a complicated heart but I don’t know if I asked you certain questions, you might not know the answer.

My pathway is just one extra that connects the SA Node and the AV Node together in a complete circle. When a pulse beat jumps into the short circuit circle, it just keeps commanding the right ventricle to pump. The normal pathway is also commanding the right ventricle to pump. That causes my heart to go into Tachycardia and has been clocked at 197 bpm. So yes, our hearts are similar and I would assume yours is a genetic birth defect too.

Now you need to start investigating your family’s past and current medical history. Others may have similar defects and don’t know it yet. I discovered 5 so far in my family with unusual heart problems. Good luck with your heart repair, they’re still waiting to map mine out. @becky1024

Hi Becky , I can't say I've heard that term exacting like your saying it , what I was told was I have hundreds of pathways that are basically rogue as they grew by themselves and don't belong there. And when they would go in and try and map the ones affecting the pacing of my heart. When they found a pathway that was causing an issue they would ablate it with either freezing or heat to shut off that path. Now I had so many their wasnt always time to find them all and also some were in places where they could not reach so ultimately the transplant was needed. So it may just be terminology but what your describing does sound similar. I know one doctor said I could have had over a thousand . The last effort they had was to try an MRI which typically can't be done with a pacemaker , since the magnetic waves would bounce off of it and make it hard to see what they wanted to see. Plus I was in a state that shutting off the pacemaker which was required ment a whole team of both Cardiologist and The techs for the pacemaker company were in the room during it. They tried for a few hours to try and determine where the bad paths were but it was unsuccessful. All I know is Mayo is a great place to be when you have the tought cases. And mine sure had them trying everything. So my doctors usually used terms like bad paths and I guess rougue could be a term to describe them also.

Hi,
We haven't had the pacemaker/defib conversation yet. I've mentioned exercise induced shortness of breath but didn't get much of a reaction. Will try again and am also going to look into talking to a Electro Physiologist cardio doctor. Thanks for your input,
Deb

Hi Dana,
Really appreciate you sharing your journey, this was very helpful. I have been feeilng that the next step will be an EP cardo doc and you have confirmed that I will need to find one soon. Thanks again,
Deb

Hi Deb, I suffered with Vintricular Tachycardia for about 10 years and had a pacemaker defibulater. I just want to stop by and say that the new symptom of shortness of breath is probably tied to the Tachycardia.
A brief history of me is that at first I was in the "until it does " category. I first was diagnosed with CHF with a IF of 5 % after a flu bug cased fluid around my lungs to enlarge my heart and so a pacemaker was put in as a precaution and i was put on Amiodroine and a beta blocker. I think it was coreg. So for about 5 years I had no issues that I knew of and one night the pacemaker had to shock me when I went into an arrhythmia where my pulse rate went over 200. Now I mentioned this because when the heart speeds up (that's what Tachycardia means) there is not enough oxygen rich blood leaving the heart to satisfy your body so you feel like your out-of breath. That was always my first symptom of an arrhythmia ( it's when the heart is moving so fast blood basically stops flowing) so the out of breath your feeling may be that your heart is in a situation I just mentioned of an arrhythmia. Now arrhythmias actually are common even in health adults but the difference is with a healthy system it usually only last a few beats and my be felt like a skipped beat or you may not feel them at all.
For me one test to verify if I was in an arrhythmia was checking my pulse. And if it seemed very fast or I could not feel it I knew to just relax sit down and let my pacemaker take care of it.
So my suggestion is to seek the advice of a cardiologist and if you believe it's electricial in nature a regular cardiologist may recognize it but that's when I was referred to an EP Cardiologist. EP stands for electro physiologist or a cardiologist that specializes in the electrical parts of the heart and most time that's where arrhythmia start, its a misfiring of the signals to cause the heart to beat. It gets out of sequence and they know how to fix those types of issues. I hope that helps and please let me know if I can help further. There are many was it can be kept under control so don't worry at this point. It could be something very easy to fix.
Blessings