Texas/New Mexico Stateline | For 30 years my mother has had a heart condition where it would suddenly race. We're talking going from normal heart rate to 200 bpm in a matter of seconds. Sometimes would last a minute or two, sometimes an hour. Always makes her feel sick, and usually vomits soon after it starts. It will suddenly stop and she'll feel normal after a little rest. Very debilitating when it is happening, and no warning. No triggers she has pinpointed.
Back in the late 1990s it was happening a lot and she was seeing a cardiologist. For whatever reason, after a battery of tests (EKG, Echocardiogram, Stress Test, monitor you carry around) he never could seem to find a solution. She finally decided she would just "live with it". She can't even remember why no treatment was prescribed, other than the cardiologist was just clueless or not really engaged in solving the problem. Got tired of the endless appointments.
At times through the years it has been worse, and other times is infrequent. The frequency has been increasing lately, and last weekend she had a very long lasting spell. And after about 4 hours, they called the ambulance. The EMTs immediately said it was SVT (Supraventricular tachycardia). Gave her two doses of adinosine which instantly stopped the attack. Apparently stops the heart for an instant, and when it restarts will go back to normal rate.
As usual she started immediately feeling better, but went ahead and transported her to the nearest hospital. The Dr. there decided to send her on to the big hospital to get checked out more thoroughly.
Anyway, after a couple days there and lots of discussion with a group of cardiologists they recommended a cardiac ablation. Very common procedure for all kinds of heart arrhythmia. They said they would expect about 90% chance of fixing the problem. My grandfather (her dad) had irregular heart beat (not SVT) that was fixed by the same procedure. Helped him a lot.
Anyway, I don't know if anybody else has had this or not, but we let it go on too long without trying to find a solution. The good news is all the cardiologists said there is very little chance of damage from these SVT events, so if they can stop it, there won't be any long term problems.
Now the tough part is they put her on some beta blocker to try and keep the heartrate slowed, and of course those have side effects. Also, can't get the ablation done until mid-May. That will be a long wait. And she has already had a short SVT event yesterday that stopped on it's own.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/supraventricular-tach...
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Heart arythmia my mother has, just FYI called SVT
