cardiactec

happy birthday!!

Happy b-day!

Just stumbled across this a few days ago. I know this situation all too well. I spent a few years with some docs telling me I had anxiety and I was really having bouts of PSVT. ---> It goes without saying that if you think there is more going on, investigate. It could spare you a lot of suffering. I believe my pots wont be as bad now that the PSVT has been addressed and treated and no longer diagnosed "anxiety". Certainly anxiety is a common problem, probably more so than PSVT, but it's just the cardiac tech in me (and with recent personal experience with this specifically) that I felt compelled to share an interesting read --> http://www.psych.org/pnews/97-04-04/cardiac.html

Hi all, out of my ep study and home resting. just wanted to let you all know that they found a focal arial tachycardia at 250 BPM and ablated it! woohoo! still didnt rid me of my sinus tach at 200 BPM (POTS) as i was in it after the study and every time i stood up from then on after in the hospital..........i also was throwing out a lot of ectopy and my EP couldnt stimulate the V-tach so they are going to watch me further with this.....but the ablation was a success in that they caught the a-tach in the right atrium and ablated! so there it is! happy new year!

thanks to you all for your support! i am SO NERVOUS right now! and it's not helping being off all beta blocker (but i had to for better chance in the lab of ''triggering'' the rhythm to try and ablate it) I will let you all know how it goes! LOVE YOU ALL!

thanks nina, i will try out your combo and hopefully it'll work! yes, i have seen a dermatologist. tried everything they prescribed X2 and also even tried oral antibiotics for about 9 months straight -- guess what THAT left me with?? no clear skin and a case of colitis. NIIIIIIICE. hopefully your combo will work. havent tried it. it's worth a shot before going out and purchasing a 200$ light therapy without even knowing if it'll work.

I have been having really bad complexion problems, specifically on my face and seems as though i have tried every cream, gel, topical, both prescription and non and all they do is dry out my skin and leave me with blemishes and skin peeling! the only thing that ever seems to clear up my skin is sunlight - i know tanning beds are bad for you, but this seems like the only thing that helps clear up my skin problem..............i was looking online and stumbled across "ligh therapy" for acne, basically "red" and "Blue" lights stuck in a mirror based looking system that you sit in front of for 15 mins a day. i know this isnt the same as UV rays, and doesnt have the harmful effects that can occur with constant UV exposure, and so i'm wondering if it would work the same for my complexion............ anyone try something like this before?

Hey all, Just wanted to let you all know that I'm going in for my EP study on the 31st (yep, monday, new years eve). I'm hoping this will be the START of a better year for me, with some answers, and resolution. I'll certainly let you all know what happens with the EP. blessings to you all for a wonderful new year! -cardiactec.

p.s. you mention alcohol -- there is a true condition called "holiday heart syndrome" -- people can go in and out of atrial fibrillation -- paroxysmal - from alcohol consumption. google holiday heart syndrome to read more about it.

dont let them pass it off as anxiety. i was told that and also "I think if you had an underlying heart rhythm abnormality, aside from sinus tach/POTS, we would have found it/seen it by now". Guess what? after five years, and two years specifically of complaining about very specific palpitations, that i kept saying WERE NOT my "normal" sinus tach/POTS symptoms, and I have proven to the docs that I was right and they were wrong -- caught an atrial tachycardia at 270's BPM on an event monitor (and to all who read my previous pots about "pots gone bad" and that this rhythm was all just POTS, that was proven to be false via mayo clinic - rhythm strips sent out to them, and their EP confirmed a "definite PSVT, most like PAT" ................) anyway, my point, get it checked out. and if your doctor doesnt believe you, find a different doctor. dont wait five years waiting for them to believe you or waiting to prove them wrong. you shouldnt have to.

it seems like blair grubb diagnosis EDS a lot in patients he sees w/ POTS. I would feel more comfortable, personally, seeing a geneticist to confirm or refute such a diagnoses. blair grubb is obviously a smart doctor, but i think it is more a definitive and probable of a diagnoses coming from a genetist.

atropine actually can cause heart rate SLOWING, when given in small doses/amounts. I would think that the amount of atropine given in eye drops would be a fairly small amount. Atropine in larger amounts, as you probably are already aware, is generally used to speed up the heart rate which serves in cases of severe bradycardia/heart block/etc. side effects of atropine thus are tachycardia - whether supraventricular or ventricular in origin. I wouldnt think that after a month of discontinuing the eye drops that you would no longer be having bouts of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia and/or sinus tach, that is, if the small amount of atropine in the drops was the culprit of these rhythm disturbances in the first place. .... This all could be related to the possibility that you've developed "more" than just POTS, but as morgan and I (and possibly others here) have come to find out, doctors for whatever reason dont necessarily take 6 beat runs, or even 15 or 20 beat runs of a nonsustained v-tach as something to be concerned with UNLESS your heart is not structurally normal and/or your EF (heart function is down), or you are passing out with it .................. Hope you get some answers and that your symptoms subside. -Angela.

hey rachel, so glad that the trip to blair grubb went well and that you got some answers!! i hope you start feeling better!

I dont know , I personally believe the cardio is saying such things because he has yet to come to the realization that he may have been wrong for the past few years.....and he doesnt want to own up to it. we'll see what happens with the EP......... The EP is being scheduled today....... I am having the EP because I'm highly highly symptomatic with this "other" heart rhythm..........heh, I'd think anyone with rates that high would be symptomatic, not much perfusion happening at 278.............at least I dont handle it well, cant speak for everyone. I, too, have been doing stress testing for about 4 years and I have never ever ever ever ever seen anyone's heart rate pass 200 - even the pedi's that I do! This rhythm has a definite abrupt onset and offset and this type of behavior is not typical of a sinus originating tachycardia - unless the rules have changed! yes, as for accessory pathway, they'd ablate that in someone with pots - as long as they stay clear of the sinus node in a pots patient (they are even moving away from sinus node modification even in patients with inappropriate sinus tach that isnt necessary induced with upright posture).........the rule of thumb is to target the irritable foci and if it happens to be the sinus node itself, they dont touch it. as far as i have been told, from a mayo clinic cardiologist a couple weeks ago, PSVT is not generally found in the pots patients, only sinus tach - so yes, those with both pots and PSVT i guess are rarities. got to run for now. i'll let you know any further info regarding all this............... talk soon all! cardiactec.

My cardiologist called me today to talk about my rhythm strips from last week that demonstrated a very sudden onset/offset tachycardia with a rate of 278 BPM. he told me tonight that though IT COULD BE ectopic atrial tachycardia, it COULD very well JUST BE sinus tachycardia which he referred to as "POTS GONE BAD" .........................?? Have any of you ever had a heart rate of 278 that was considered "pots" or "sinus tach"????? I have never ever ever heard of a sinus tachycardia THAT FAST, nor have I ever heard of a sinus tachycardia that has such a sudden onset and offset with symptomatically and morphologically on ecg......... Either way, he's still doing an EP study on me though..............

hey all! thanks for your comments/concerns/support/love - you all are so wonderful. I am so thankful right now. Just glad I am finally getting to the bottom of all this! Rachel - been thinking of you too! how have you been? tessa - ha, funny you ask - guess where i was when the "event" happened??? first I'll tell you where IT FELT LIKE I WAS -- IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS, ALL BY MYSELF WITHOUT ANY HELP - now i will tell you where i ACTUALLY was -- IN MY CARDIOLOGISTS OFFICE. he hadnt come in the room yet, I got up to sit on the examination table and WHAM - it started. He came in and i was literally crying, on the exam table and i told him i was having the event. he walked out and told the nurse to go in and do an ECG -- he wasnt even in the room while this was going on! - and mind you, he had not gotten a rhythm strip of this "event" i have been talking about for YEARS. so of course, the nurse comes in and takes 10 minutes to hook me up to the ekg and by the time she got me hooked up, it had terminated and did not display on her monitor, but thankfully i had already pressed the event monitor button on me while it was happening. my cardio came in and saw the ecg and said "well more pink paper to add to the file" - and said it in a way like "yeah sure you had an event". grrr. i told him that i caught it on my monitor and he continued to disregard it and didnt even want to download the monitor while i was in the office with him!!! proceeded to say "well we'll do an EP study but i bet you a million dollars that all of this is sinus tach/POTS and nothing more. i was LIVID! the next day, after i had gone home and downloaded the monitor and the people at lifewatch had faxed my strips out, i went up to my cardio after he had looked at the strips and i said to him "how about a direct deposit of that million into my bank account" .........yeah, he was speechless, didnt apologize or anything to me, but simply said "this is extremely fast and is some sort of PSVT". tessa, what was the underlying rhythm at 240 BPM? deucykub, yes it certainly has been A LONG TIME since the FIRST TIME i ever said "there is something else going on". this goes to show, TO ALL OF YOU, and anyone else who struggles with chronic illness, if you feel there is something more going on, EVEN IF everyone tells you you're crazy or it's all in your head, dont give up -- the truth will be revealed - even if it takes five years! morgan, thanks for your support and i'll let you know what becomes of the EP study. Amy, - hopefully the treatment plan will be to ablate the crap out of these abnormal electrical pathways and it'll all be taken care of. we shall see. thanks for your support.

Alright so I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that after five years of mystery, of questioning, of trying to tell people there was more than "POTS" happening, we have confirmed that there is MORE than just POTS going on and maybe not even pots at all!!!! I had been wearing an event monitor for the past two weeks and four days ago the ''mystery rhythm'' kicked off. I pressed the recording button and the event was so long that I was actually still IN "the rhythm" after the monitor stopped recording, TWICE in a row. Long story short, what we caught was some sort of PSVT (not sinus tachycardia) - it had a very clear and extreme abrupt onset from my "normal" baseline "sinus" tachycardia at 130 BPM to a whopping 278 BPM and then it broke after about 4 minutes of going 278! I thought I seriously was going to die - so so scary. The differentials of the 278 BPM tachyarrhythmia are a few but it is now confirmed, 100% sure, that this is NOT a POTS (sinus tachy) rhythm. They however arent 100% sure if I also have pots on top of this other rhythm disturbance, and to make all this even MORE exciting, said with SUCH sarcasm, I also have the ventricular tachycardia that they caught a few weeks ago. I will be undergoing an EP study within a few weeks to hopefully try and sort some of this out. I am thrilled that finally we seem to be getting somewhere with all this! Just wanted to fill you all in on the latest. Hope you all are doing okay. -cardiactec.

LOL, thanks Amy -- even if I dont have POTS, I'll always be a POTSY at heart (no pun!) since I've spent the past five years thinking I have POTS.

hey morgan, i'm so sorry you're dealing with this...................I can relate, as you know, because I've been having v-tach episodes as well...........thankfully an EP doc was standing right over my shoulder while i was attached to a monitor and he saw it with his own two eyes. fortunately for me i have the luxury of working in the field of cardiology and have EP's to my left and right and monitors to grab onto to try and PROVE IT that it's happening. ....it is so sad to begin with though that we should feel the need to have to PROVE ANYTHING - we should simply be taken seriously, and BE BELIEVED. So sorry you're being treated so poorly. I can never understand, as you mentioned, why nonsustained VT is passed off as simply being "benign". I was told the same thing, because the VT broke on it's own and was under 30 seconds in duration. I cant remember who on this site said several months ago how ridiculous it sounds to think that if you enter a cardiac unit and see a patient in VT on a monitor, that you'd catch a doctor or nurse pulling out a stop watch clocking the VT and if the VT was less than 30 seconds, that they'd simply turn around and walk away as if it never happened. Personally, I believe whether or not your a post cardiac surgery patient, a CHF patient, post MI patient, OR JUST A YOUNG PERSON WITH ''A STRUCTURALLY NORMAL HEART'', that ALL CASES OF VT whether sustained or not should be taken seriously...............................because who is to say that the next time the "nonsustained case" doesnt turn sustained???? I can guarantee you there is no doctor that would want to guarantee you, with their license on the line, that a nonsustained VT wont ever turn sustained.................... I had to laugh when you mentioned the "funeral" part of your post.......lol, my cardio kept saying about the VT "well you have a structurally normal heart so we're not as concerned"..............lol, I said to him, so if for some reason the nonsustained VT turns sustained and I die, are you going to say at my funeral "well, she had a structurally normal heart" .......................I'm sure that would go over REAL well. as for the pysch diagnoses, I can relate. especially to docs that just walk into the picture and dont have a clue about your med history or anything................I had that experience a couple weeks ago in ICU with a cardiologist who walked into my room and the first words out of his mouth were "you know, you look awfully thin, do you know eating disorders can cause rhythm disturbances? " I was NOT impressed. I told him that he should try living with HR's every day in the 200 range and see how well HE can keep the calories in and the weight on! that ended the anorexia nervosa theory of his pretty quick! LOL! Hang in there girl. I know exactly how you feel. Dont let these doctor's get you down. -cardiactec.

hey all -- before I begin -- GOOD NEWS -- FIVE YEARS LATER AND POST POW WOW SESSION WITH EIGHT DIFFERENT DOCTOR'S -- two from mayo, one from new york, two from boston, and three from here in maine and I'm getting my EP study and hopefully confirmation of what is going on. that being said, ALL OF THESE DOCTORS agree that ventricular tachycardia is not part of POTS nor have they ever seen it in any of their pots patients in particular. they dont know what it causing it. also, they arent sure if the POTS is really POTS or instead an atrial tachycardia -- or both! BUT the EP study will help to rule out some things.............. to answer some questions -- yes, i have seen several neurologists and have had MRI's and other neuro testing and it all has come back normal. I havent changed any meds and actually have not been on any med except for zofran off and on, so meds dont have any part of the v-tach. everyone is different in how they present with v-tach. symptom-wise, some people arent even symptomatic (unless sustained VT) with nonsustained VT. for me, the symptoms are quite severe -- and differ from "POTS", if that's what I have to begin with...........with "pots" or we'll just say SVT, i just feel tired, a little wobbly and woozy. with ventricular tachycardia, i actually feel MAJOR palpitations ONLY in my neck. it almost feels like a fluttering sensation or a "ripple" effect. I feel like passing out, I get tunnel vision, and basically feel like death warmed over. just a side note, SVT and VT are completely two different rhythm disturbances. SVT stands for supraventricular tachycardia -- which includes a variety of tachyarrhytmia's that originate from the top chambers of the heart (the atria). sinus tachycardia, which occurs with the POTS patient, is a type of SVT, but NOT a PSVT (the P stands for paroxysmal, meaning the rhythm starts and stops abruptly and generally does not originate in the sinus node -- unlike SINUS tachycardia that DOES originate in the sinus node). ventricular tachycardia comes from the lower chambers of the heart, not upper chambers, so it is not an SVT. usually ventricular tachycardia's cause symptoms that are a little more forceful feeling than SVT's because the ventricles are much bigger than the atria (where's SVT's occur) and to put it simply create more UMPH behind the beats they create, so generally the feelings or palpitations are to a greater severity or sensation than with SVT's. generally, the trick to determining whether a nonsustained VT or SVT is with a holter or event monitor because for some people, the symptoms may be the same (or none at all) and so waveform morphology via ecg must be the ultimate diagnostic tool for determining SVT from VT. anyway, that is the latest and greatest. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!

it's just frustrating because as bad as the pots symptoms and HR's are, I can deal with that about fifteen times better than the accompanying symptoms of vtach, even though it is non-sustained. the feelings of vtach are much worse than pots feelings, cant even come close to how horrible it feels...................just wish something could be done and that someone could figure out why this is happening.... anyway, hope you all are doing well and happy thanksgiving. truly THERE IS STILL much to be thankful for.

Hey all, I have been out of the loop here for a bit......I was admitted last weekend to ICU after being at work and ONCE AGAIN going into a non-sustained v-tach. ( ............I am frustrated at this point because my EP thinks that the V-tach is just from progressive neuro disease (heh, of which they cant put a diagnoses/name to except for POTS!) .........I have spoken with a few different doc's who specialize in pots and NONE of them have had patients that have gone into V-tach FROM pots. my EP basically is having a pow wow with other EP's in the area, also has tried to get ahold of blair grubb (and he hasnt returned his phone calls), has tried to get ahold of mayo (hasnt returned his phone calls), and meanwhile is putting me on desmopressin.............this WILL NOT take care of the v-tach issues, but is more of a treatment for what he believes is "all POTS" .................... I really burnt out on this.............I have tried to get ahold of docs in boston and none of them are available for appt until next december! it is interesting in that for the past five months i have caught about five different rhythms on me, while at work....sometimes i wonder what would happen if i wasnt in the profession i am in -- no one would EVER have known that any of this was going on with me.................but then again, it doesnt seem like anyone is willing to do anything about it anyway............. ( Just filling you all in on the latest and greatest.... -cardiactec.

does anyone have shakiness and weakness in their arms and hands? i have recently started having problems with coordination in my arms and hands and also weakness/shakiness. actually, even typing this is hard....... >????

cardiac technician. but more specifically non-invasive electrophysiology technician. I hook patients up to ecgs, holter and event monitors, and provide transtelephonic services in rhythm interpretation. I also am involved in pacemaker and ICD interrogation and also perform stress tests. i LOVE my job.

I have normal blood volume and the docs tell me to keep salt and fluid loading. I laughed at them and asked them why when I'm normal volume? they said that in people with pots, a lot of people pool blood so much that the body literally "senses" this pooling that occurs almost as a literal ''blood loss'' -- it would be the same reaction in someone who truly is hypovolemic from blood loss say from a major cut to the leg..... so when we salt and water load, it increases volume, whether normal or low to start with, and so it decreases the effects that occur from the blood pooling in the lower limbs, with what the body senses as "low blood volume" or a hypovolemic state when people pool. this is how it was explained to me as to the reasoning for continued water/salt loading in pots patients with normal volume.