Need help with SVT

Hi, Our son had scars in his heart when he was 19 years old. That has been 24 years ago. The Dr. was going to do an ablation on him. However ,we prayed very hard. The preacher and his whole congregation all prayed for our son. When there is a lot of prayer it is powerful and I believe God listens closer. They were unable to map the scars , so could not do the ablation. Thank-God because we learned later that this certain Dr burned a hole in a kids heart. I am not trying to upset you. That was a long time ago. The Dr.s have become very more learned about this procedure!!!  It is done quite often. Ask your Dr. how many times he had done this procedure. If he is good the ablation should help stop V-Tach if this is what you are having it done for. Just trust God and he will help you! Just think how nice it will be when your heart works normally. It usually only takes one ablation to fix the problem. Please do not be afraid. I know you are young. But medicine has come a LONG WAY since our son had these problems. I wish his problem had come up now so they could help him with ablation. His heart is in too bad a condition now for them to do it. May God bless you and assure you it will be ok. Trust in the lord with all of your heart. He will help you.

      XxaimxX, I only received the first two lines of your message to me.  Could you please resend it?  I'm very pleased you're receiving so much support and encoragement from forum members.  We have lots of empathy for you and are looking forward to hearing good news from you.  Take care.

I'm with you, I hope you get better I just recently had an episode of svt. I have an appointment soon with my cardiologist to talk about a possible ablation. I have a question thou have you ever felt like bubbling in your chest. See I'm taking Metoprolo ER and I'm not sure if that's a side effect or something I should worry about.

I can only give you my story. I've had SVT since I was 13.  Nobody believed me when i said my heart was racing the few times it happened.  I wasn't diagnosed until I was 24.  I had an episode every couple of years that needed to be converted with Adenosine.  No problems.  I travelled overseas, took up running, went camping, had surgery, got pregnant, got pregnant with twins, had a natural twin delivery at term, etc etc.     ie NOTHING STOPPED ME doing what I wanted to do.  Why the hell would it?  I'm a healthy person who has no problems except when my heart is in SVT.  

At that point ablation was ONLY OFFERED to people who suffered for hours of SVT daily. I know it's hard to grasp for everyone who expects an ablation after one episode but that's how it was.

Four and a half years ago I started having more frequent episodes.  I was in the ED every 6 weeks or so having Adenosine, shorter episodes in between that converted themselves after half an hour or so.  i eventually went to see a Cardiologist and he offered an ablation which I declined. I was surprised that I was even elligible because I wasn't having daily episodes.

About ten months ago I went back to see him and put myself on the wait list after a long episode of 7 hours closely followed by another of 2 hours.  I was a bit over the inconvenience. I'm still on the wait list and happy to remain so - I've had less episodes this year and only been in the ED three times so that's a huge improvement.  I believe magnesium has made the difference although it took some time before I saw the results the trend of episodes has been downwards. 

In the meantime i don't consider myself to be sick - I'm a Nurse so I know what sick looks like and it isn't me. I'm in my forties and have now lived with SVT for 30 years.  I live my life how i want, wouldn't even stop to consider SVT to be a barrier to anything I wanted to do (I'd maybe hesitate to travel to the antarctic for an expedition but it wasn't really on my bucket list anyway).  I've run triathlons and I scooter with my kids and go for long walks with my friends.  SVT can strike at such random times including sleep (the last one was sitting completely still in a lecture) that if I let it stop me from doing a single thing it would be completely unjustified and illogical because I could be out windsurfing all day and not have an episode but experience one the next morning while I was asleep.

So my advice to you is pick yourself up and get on with your life. SVT is not dangerous, it's only inconvenient.

I know how you feel. I am a 51 year old male who has been dealing with SVT/AVNRT since I can remember.  I used to be able to deal with by performing vagal and valsala manuevers with no medication, but recently the episodes are too frequent and sometime last from a few seconds to one hour. I spoke specialist and the approved me for catheter ablation. I have my ablation schedule next week 12/15/16 @ 7am in Los Angeles at the Kaiser Medical Ofiice. I'm having an epsiode as I type this up. I'm looking forward to a life without this annoyance. I'm currently off of work and couldn't work if i wanted, based on the recurring symptoms. Specialist says that change is due to changes that occur in the heart after you 50 years. Well what do you know, I just crossed that threshold. I will try to respond back with my results once the procedure is completed. Good luck to you and keep your fingers crossed for me. Talk to you soon. 

Hi, 

I am almost 38 and I had my first SVT episode that I could tell over 3 months ago. My HR never went above 150BPM, and if I was resting, it was around 122 or so. But it was scary and it lasted several hrs. After that, I had a full cardiac evaluation. Blood work all were normal, echo was normal, EKG was normal, and I even got a 10 day heart monitor and the results of that were as close to normal as possible. The cardiologist told me that there were only 2 episodes on my 10 day holter monitor of SVT. One lasted for 10 sec at 108BPM, and the other lasted for 6 sec at 126 BPM. Other than that, she said everything else was perfectly normal, Avg HR = 76BPM, PVC/PAC<1%, no episodes of AF or irregular heart beat. Based on these results, she told me I don't need any meds unless the episodes become frequent (every week or every day) and last for long. Since then, I have only had a one episode that I could tell which lasted for maybe about a few minutes. 

One thing about SVT is that, a lot of the times, it has a trigger. I have realized for me, certain spices in foods, too much caffein, and some aged cheeses give me heart palps. Also stress and anxiety are definitely triggers for me. During times of high stress, I usually get more heart palps.

A few things that help me reduce my heart rate, is lying down and practicing deep breathing (yoga style) and jumping under a cold shower definitely helps reduce the heart rate.

I have decided to try managing it without meds and with diet and stress management and see what happens. For now, I have only had a couple of episodes in 6 months. I guess if things get worst, I will look in to other treatments.

This is something that can be managed. It is not life threatening. Have you had a cardiac evaluation to evaluate the health of your heart?