Super_tachy_1

Hi Alice Jean! I'm so sorry to hear that you are having issues since your ablation as well - I am interested to hear your story - will send you an email this evening!

Thanks so much for your reply, Sushi!! I agree that some of the nerves may have been ablated in my heart, especially since my ablation was in the right atrium, which apparently has a much higher density of autonomic nerve than the left atrium. I asked the EP who did the ablation and the tilt test about this twice, and both times he seemed to dismiss the idea. I actually have an appt for a second opinion with another ER tomorrow morning, so we'll see what that brings. And I totally don't blame you for holding off on the ablation for this reason!! From what I have read, I think AFib ablations usually are in the left atrium around the pulmonary veins, so maybe you might be relatively ok if you eventually decide to do it? But proceeding with caution like you are doing is a very smart thing!! Yeah, I have been too scared to try the midodrine so far lol - since I don't have a history of passing out in my day-to-day life, I honestly would prefer to just stick with ivabradine, especially since my BP gets so high with anxiety. Will ask the second opinion doc about this too. I guess I'm a just work in progress at the moment

...and WOW was I in for a big surprise!! So, brief history in case it helps anyone - I was fairly healthy and considered myself fairly normal (other than an SVT and associated pretty bad health anxiety that went along with that) up until having an ablation for it back in June 2019. After the ablation, I developed an overall much faster and more reactive heart rate, and started getting bad reactions to things like heat, certain foods, moderate exertion, and alcohol - none of which I had a major problem with before. I was finally diagonsed with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia last month, but mentioned to my EP at that appointment that I had noticed that my heart rate went up around 30 beats per minute when I stood up, and asked him to do a Tilt Table Test to rule POTS in/out. As I have no real history of fainting (other than maybe 5 or 6 times of feeling lightheaded and like I might black out in the shower over the last 20 years, but it passed if I got out of the shower - I have never actually fainted), I expected the test to be pretty uneventful, and my EP was basically doing it to humor me/shut me up, so I figured "easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy", right? Wrong. I don't have the official report yet, but I know I went up about 30 beats (roughly 75-105) after a minute or so, then came back down to around 80. My blood pressure was fairly normal and constant. I figured it would stay around that way for the remainder of the test. Well, after a few more minutes, the nurse asked me if I felt lightheaded. I turned my head and saw that my BP was around 105/65, but I felt ok so I said no, I'm fine. After maybe another minute I started to feel nauseous and it very quickly over the next minute or two after that progressed to feeling shaky and just overall bad. Then my vision stated to gray out a bit and I freaked out and told them to stop the test. I got hot and sweaty when they tilted me back then after a few minutes felt freezing cold. I found out later that the last BP measurement before I asked them to stop the test dropped so low that the cuff couldn't even register it!!! They called it "non-palpable". And my HR climbed back up to 111 or so while my pressure was dropping. It took me a while to recover, but they brought me some water and a sandwich, and I eventually left to go home. On the drive home, I started feeling sick and shaky again and I asked my mom if she could drive the rest of the way. She took over driving but after about 2 minutes I felt anxious and shaky like I was going to pass out, and we had to pull over at a gas station and call the paramedics. When they came, my BP was 158/115!!! I have never in my life had a reading that high, and I am no stranger to panic attacks. I ended up in the ER, and after being checked out as ok and given another sandwich and a big glass of water, was released. We made it home and I am feeling a little better now, but I am pretty shaken to the core - I never really thought the test would make me come close to passing out (even though I was pretty scared of what I considered the small possibility of it happening). My EP was pretty stunned and said it was a "very positive" test and is calling it "Neurogenic Syncope" - I asked if this can be considered POTS, and didn't really get an answer - he said POTS is sort of a subset of Neurogenic Syncope. In any case, he did prescribe midodrine and I am supposed to start taking it tomorrow, although now I am scared knowing that my BP can actually get so sky-high under stress. And I'm freaked out that my body seems to have so much POTENTIAL to pass out, that I didn't even know was there until today. All in all, quite a day....and I'm still not totally sure if I have POTS or not 🤦‍♀️ I'm inclined to say "yes", mainly because it's a heck of a lot easier to say than "neurogenic syncope" lol.

I started having constant dysequilibrium and elevator sensations like this 9 or 10 years ago along with general fatigue, brain fog, and a feeling of disconnectedness from my body - I was pretty sure I was dying lol. It turned out to be an inner ear issue - the official diagnosis for me was/is vestibular migraine.

Hi all - does anyone have any experience with very light social drinking (like one glass of wine consumed slowly with food) while taking ivabradine? I'm planning on starting ivabradine tomorrow and don't see any warnings on the medication bottle regarding this (only grapefruit) so just wanted to see what people's experiences were?

I have been having similar things happen after eating and drinking certain things since I developed IST (and possibly POTS). I can have horrible pounding tachycardia while just sitting there after eating (110 - 140 bpm), and sometimes a tingling feeling in my chest, a feeling like there is a heavy weight or pressure on my chest, and shortness of breath. The things I can no longer tolerate mostly seem to be fermented - vinegar, soy sauce, wine - although I have occasionally noticed it when I haven't had those things as well. At first I chalked it up to my heart being irritable after my ablation but now I'm looking into a possible localized histamine or tyramine sensitivity. In your case, the Gatorade is pretty heavy in the sugar department - which I think is known to cause a little bit of a fast heart rate even in normal people too - maybe it was the sugar for this particular item? Or your blood pressure dropping after eating the other foods, triggering tachycardia? This is normal in healthy people as well I think, just to a much lesser extent. But it sounds like you aren't eating very big meals (my assumption here), so maybe this isn't the case...

I have IST (tilt table for POTS is pending so I'm currently not sure if I have POTS in addition to IST or not) and I definitely get worse when I don't sleep and/or am stressed - my whole baseline/resting heart rate shifts up even further and my heart gets even more "reactive" to movement, stress, etc. than it already is. I can clearly see the difference in the heart rate data recorded by my Apple Watch and Fitbit, so I'm pretty sure it's not all in my head lol. My monthly female hormonal shifts seem to affect it as well.

Thanks everyone for the responses - such great information!!

Thanks so much for the kind welcome and helpful information, Pistol!! As for the diltiazem, I found that although it lowered my heart rate a bit, it made me overall feel funny (maybe because my blood pressure is not high to begin with), gave me a few extra PAC's/PVC's (which I have had an increase in since the ablation and can feel every single one-not fun), and it also seemed to make my heart beat HARDER, even though it was a tad slower - overall, not a completely horrible med for me, but not awesome so I wanted to try my other options. I decided today to try ivabradine before I try metoprolol, so will see if I can start on a tiny dose this weekend. I will also consider an SSRI - so glad to hear one benefitted you! I have been trying to keep on top of hydration, but need to do a better job, for sure...And the salt unfortunately is a careful balancing act for me because salt intake excretes potassium, and if I don't keep my potassium at a certain level, I get more ectopics - but I do try to have salt frequently throughout the day. I have an old pair of compression stockings laying around somewhere - I may see if I can dig them up or else order another pair. Thanks again, really appreciate the advice!!

Very helpful feedback - thanks so much, Sushi!!

Hi everyone - this may be a totally ridiculous question (sorry!), but I have a TTT scheduled for early January. This will be my first - and even though I am the one who pushed my EP into doing it, I'm starting to freak out a bit reading about people's experiences. I have never actually completely passed out in my life, though I have come close a few times, and my biggest fear is that if I actually DO pass out or have some other sort of wickedly bad reaction to the TTT, that it will trigger something in my body and make me either temporarily or permanently worse...this kind of happened to me this past January when a medical procedure triggered a vagal response and I almost passed out then ended up in the ER from not recovering well from it, then suffered a horrible series of nearly constant panic attacks for months after that. I know, I know, I totally have crazy health anxiety lol....but I can't get the thought out of my mind... Does anyone feel that a bad reaction to the TTT triggered something in them that made them either temporarily or permanently worse?? Or did even a bad reaction to the test leave you feeling like your usual self in the days/weeks/months afterwards?

Hi everyone! I just signed up and wanted to introduce myself. I'm a 46 year old female who has had issues with an overly fast and extra-reactive heart rate after having a radiofrequency catheter ablation for an atrial tachycardia (a less common type of SVT) 6 months ago. I was just diagnosed yesterday with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia by the EP who did the ablation. I mentioned that I would like to be tested for POTS as well since my heart rate goes up around 35 bpm when standing (I don't have EDS, but I definitely don't have the greatest leg veins and I have some blood pooling going on...I may have been very mildly POTS-like before all this now that I think about it), so I have a tilt table test scheduled in early January. I have been in denial that this may be permanent until recently, as I kept thinking my body just needed to heal from the procedure. But now I personally believe that some of the autonomic nerves in my heart were destroyed by the burning of the ablation, creating an imbalance (excessive sympathetic and/or deficient parasympathetic) - and I am no longer confident that the situation will rectify itself. I'm physically pretty functional, but feel much more limited than before since I can't push myself to previously normal limits and have to watch how much exertion I have - also, my life has been turned upside down since I'm now having excessive tachycardia with not only walking around, small stress etc. but also strong responses to certain foods and alcohol, which was never a problem for me before. As food and wine used to be a major part of my life, I find myself now depressed and isolating myself from my friends, plus I felt I had to break things off with a romantic relationship I had been in because of this. The anxiety of having heart issues both before and after the ablation took its toll and I ended up moving back in with my parents to help alleviate the health anxiety of living alone (Im not married and have no kids). I'm fortunate that my job has been flexible in allowing me to work from home a lot. But needless to say, I really want my old life back! I have tried diltiazem but wasn't crazy about it (may not have given it a fair shot though) but after my EP appt yesterday, I was prescribed metoprolol, which I haven't taken yet, and am admittedly a little nervous about. I was also given the option of trying ivabradine, which I may ask to try instead of the metoprolol - we'll see. I am trying to research and implement other things that may help as well like deep breathing exercises to strengthen the parasympathetic/vagus nerve - I figure it definitely can't hurt!! I just need to stick with some of these new things, which I am not always great at doing. Well, anyway, thanks for reading my saga, sorry for such a long post lol. I have been lurking the boards for a couple of months while trying to figure all this out, but now that it's official, I figured I would sign up and contribute. Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences - many of your posts have been very helpful to me in understanding and coping with this craziness - and not feeling so alone