Electrical Conduction Of The Heart

[jkapache]

A dr I know that works with balnance and people that fall alot was talking about Electrical Conduction and POTS ptients. He was saying that sometimes the arteries to the heart dont have the same path- and that the EC done by a cardiologist that specializes in it would be good to do, especially when he heard I was only 19. Has anyone ever heard or done this? I was sorta zoning during the conversation.. so only picked up 1/2 the info!

[cardiactec]

hey jess,

i have never heard of this. conduction pathways are very different from coronary anatomy. the only thing different i have heard of with coronary anatomy that can be different in some people is which artery is most "dominant" in people that feed the back side of the heart........basically the coronary artery that supplied both the posterior descending artery and posterior lateral artery is the "dominent" vessel....most people are right dominant, meaning that the posterior descending artery in the heart is fed by the right coronary artery......other people are left dominant, meaning the circumflex artery supplies the posterior descending artery with blood............either way, this shouldnt have any effect on conduction issues........i think you might be referring to an "EP study" ?? EP studies are set aside for people who have abnormalities in the conduction pathways.......some conduction abnormalities can be due to coronary artery disease (but i have never heard of anatomical variations of coronary anatomy to cause conduction problems)........even if you had coronary artery disease (which you most likely dont since you are only 19, still it could happen though) they wouldnt bring you in for an EP study because the conduction problem isnt the primary problem in people with coronary artery disease, they'd end up bringing someone like this in to fix the blockage in the artery which would then in turn reverse whatever arrhythmia/conduction block that was going on.....

EP docs are very good at differentiating true arrhythmia problems vs. arrhythmias that are provoked by autonomic dysfunction. the onset and offset of tachyarrhythmia's is how they define what the differential diagnosis is........usually if a patient is taken in for a tilt table and it provokes tachy, it is autonomically driven and most likely the tachycardia "offset" (when it terminates) is "turned on" when the patient returns to supine position......if the tachycardia persists after supine position (some pots patients have this), the doc might suggest the possibility of inappropriate sinus tachycardia as well as a diagnosis of pots.......or perhaps some sort of metabolic disturbance for the supine tachy......there are a bunch of variables to investigate to sort of where and how the arrhythmia is both initiated and terminated.......

with all this said, people with pots with no other underlying arrhythmia are not good candidates for EP studies........

hope this helps.

take care.

[jkapache]

thanks for the reply, to be honest I really did not understand what this dr was trying to tell me.. thats why I thought I would ask on the forum. I think his point he was tying to make to me is that the stuff going to my heart might not be correct anymore... and to get it checked out............ again thanks for the reply!