I am a newbie - here is my story

HI - I found this forum and it has been comforting to find you are not alone. My crazy heart gave me a horrible scare about 3 weeks ago and a nice trip by ambulance to the ER. I had been sick for a few days prior and up all that evening with no sleep trying to humidify a horrible cough in my bathroom. Of course the sudafed at 3am for my sinus added to the situation. AT about 7am I finally left the bathroom to go sit in my living room. I sat down started to cough alittle and WHAM my heart started to race. Well I have had this happen many times over the years and gave it no second thought. I bent over heald my breath like I always would and tried to get it back into rythm. Well it was not working - tried again - nothing. OK so nerves kick in now - I go upstairs woke my husband (who got hardly any sleep checking on me all night) and told him the deal. He sat with me and said maybe I was just too anxious and to relax. I am known for anxiety too. I said hmmmm maybe he is right - well tried to relax -  nothing. Now about 10 minutes went by and my heart just wanted to jump from my chest and run on its own. We went back down stairs and I sat in the chair bent over holding my heart in my chest afraid it was gonna break loose. I said honey call 911 this is not right - NOW!!! So he did and it seemed like forever for them to get there - 7 minutes to be exact. So now my heart was running a marathon for 20 minutes. Oh and let me add that my husbands company had sold a few weeks prior and we have no insurance. SOooo my heart is racing and that call to 911 is like a register cha chinging in my head. I let that go though - this is my heart and I am scared. The ambulance got there and now I am getting very dizzy at this point. They put me on the heart monitor as my heart races at 285 beats per minute and they cannot get any BP on me at all. I was just about to pass out as the EMT was coaching me to breath in my oxygen mask. AS the other EMT guy was getting the IV to give me drugs - I hate needles!!! - he took the IV put it in my hand as I tensed up from the thought of that needle - I threw my heart back to normal. Ahhhhhh. Instantly I felt better - besides from being so wiped and coughing like a seal. I stood up to get on the gurney and almost went down from my heart running a marathon on its own.  So they took me to the hospital. MY poor 7 year old son was actually sleeping on the couch that night and had woken up as they were wheeling me out looking like darth vader. HE was Ok though - we have had many trips to the hospital between all of us. MY 4 year old daughter slept through it. So hubby stayed behind to get them off to school and then meet me there. Wow was that scary!!!! So with that experience I thought back a bit - I had this happen when I was 17ish - now 34. I passed out at a job once - they said it was anxiety - could have been. Another time this happened I was still living at home also 17ish - and I woke up to this rapid heart rate and my dad rushed my to the ER and my heart returned to normal when we got there. I remember seeing a doctor back then - but I was young and never followed through and do not remember it being what I am told today. Over the years I have had lots of episodes of my heart racing, but have always been able to correct that. I just assumed it was somewhat normal and never gave it a second thought. Well I guess I just lined up the stars the night I had to visit the ER. So now I was diagnosed with PSVT. I am on a beta blocker but a very low dose. Boy does that take some time getting use to - I have my ups and downs on it. I had my Cardio visit finally on Friday - took that long to get in with him. Suggested the ablation - I cried. Can you believe I am more worried about the needles than them going in my heart - what is wrong with me? I have to wait till we have insurance though - BUMMER. I think I will opt to do it - cause the stress of the unknown haunts me. The doctor says it will happen again - when is anyones guess. But as you get older your heart can only with stand so much. I felt better knowing I would not have a heart attack from this, which is the jist I got at the hospital. So I am trying to tell myself this is so common and you know what it is. It is just nice to read about other people who think their heart is gonna explode of jump through hoops - just like I do at times - and it is very scary. I feel like I always have my hand on my neck taking my pulse checking for normal beats. I think this is the first electrical problem my husband cannot fix. Well that is my story - hope it was not too long. Nice to meet you all.

hi ilashes,

ditto message to teri's!  welcome to the forum.  i'm pretty new to it too, only been on a few weeks, but i have found it so far to be invaluable.  it is SO nice to have a place to talk about these things where you know you're not just wearing those around you out about it.  you sound like you have a nice, supportive husband and of course that's great too.  but i love to turn to this forum and ask questions, vent, give suggestions, be supportive.  i've had a really hard couple of weeks of late with various problems, and i told my partner darren that my new forum was one of the only reasons i was finding myself able to stay on top of my attitude and positive feelings and HOPE.  i don't have the ablation situation either, but i know there's a "thread" on just that topic.

libby

Teri16 said...



I, myself, have never walked in your shoes, but many here have! I think that you'll hear from most of them with time, as we have some pretty wonderful people here!



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<FONT]Best Wishes, Teri [img]/community/emoticons/tongue.gif[/img]

Hello Lovingwife, My name is Pilar, I just read your post about your son’s friend ablation SVT, I have  a son with 2 episodes of Atrial fibrillation the doctors recommend and electrophysiology study to find out what is the problem...I had send his records to 2 specialist….were know waiting for Drs. answers 

If I may ask you what was your son’s friend problem? What hospital it was the ablation done?

I'm new member of this forum and been looking for people that has similar experience with kids Pilar

My son's friend went to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Don't know what caused the area of his heart to misfire - but they located it and took care of it.

Good luck to you and your family.

I'm sorry I don't have details. He was 8 yrs. old. The mom doesn't recall the name of the tests they did, just that the pediatric cardiologist did some tests and then the interventional cardiologist did the ablation.

My own son, now 16, has heart problems (aortic stenosis- requiring a valvoplasty) so I do know how frightening it can be when your child has heart problems. Hang in there.  What I liked about the children's hospital is that they met as a team to review the case before making a treatment decision. That way we had 5 or 6 smart brains deciding the best action, rather than one smart brain.  I don't know how other hospitals work, but this was a comfort to me.  You can always request multiple opinions to feel more confident about your child's care/treatment.

Best wishes - Hang in there.

L.W.