Sick Sinus? Please read.

I am a 22 year old female who has some strange rhythm problems with my heart which make me feel very ill.

I am having an EP study done in the next two months.

I basically just wanted some opinions and to ask if anyone has SSS similar to mine, and if it is successfully treated with a pacemaker.

My cardiologist mentioned I could be having sinus node dysfunction or SSS. He also said it could be a junctional rhythm, but can't tell.

A quick overview of my case:

Over the past 7 months I have been getting palpitations and episodes of rapid heart beat. I also get slow, hard beats which are not PVCs or PACs (I had an ECG when they were happening) I also think I have had a few runs of A-fib, but these haven't been caught on a monitor. I have felt a flutter in my chest a number of times. However, it is hard to tell as I also have lots of muscle spasms in my chest area so it's possible it was just that. Hard to say without being recorded.

The fastest my heart has gotten is close to 200bpm, recorded on a monitor the fastest was around 180bpm.

Here's the thing. I always catch my heart being quite erratic. Very fast then very slow, and continues to alternate. Both my GP and cardiologist mentioned this could be Sinus Node Dysfunction. Everytime I have an ECG is either says ''Sinus Arrythmia'' or ''PSVT".

It often happens during the night when I'm laying in bed, and always around 3am for some reason! But it also happens during the day a lot! It goes like this:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

and it continues on.... I feel pauses too.

I am taking beta blockers and they seem to help with the tachy but they wear off so quickly. My heart still acts erratic though. Slow then fast etc. I've always remembered having a fast heart rate since I was in high school. During gym class they taught us to take our pulse in the class room and every elses was around 60 and mine was in the 90s - 100. I remember other occasions too where my resting pulse was in the 90s - 100.

My cardio has told me it is all benign but they want to figure it out for me as I've come so close to blacking out a number of times, and I actually blacked out once.

From your experience, does this sound more like SSS or Sinus Node Dysfunction? I know that your heart doesn't necessaries have to go super slow to be SSS or SND. But sometimes it goes super slow and then there's a run of really fast and rapid beats afterwards. It makes me feel really ill.

Any opinions or experiences?

I can't wait to have this all sorted out. I'm nervous for the results of my EP study.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope to hear back!

=)

6 Comments

Opps

by Sian88 - 2010-07-20 05:07:22

Oops. That didn't appear correctly when I was trying to illustrate my heart rhythm LOL. It's not regular at all.

It's very irregular. Alternates between super slow, slow and then fast and rapid. Just a cycle of it...and drives me mad.

Thanks =)

by Sian88 - 2010-07-20 07:07:26

Thanks so much Angelie for your response.

Do you have a pacemaker from your ablations?

I'm looking forward to my EP study. A little nervous, but looking forward to it. I have heard some people get the sinus area ablated and need a pacemaker after but are at least tachy-free.

Do the beta blockers work for you? They work for me but not always. At least they make the day easier to get through. But I do feel sleepy and still feel heart pauses.

You say your sinus node gave up? Did you have strange tachy and so on before this happened?

I have strange episodes where I feel suddenly faint and dizzy, and then it's like my heart kicks in and goes really fast to compensate.

I keep feeling my heart pause and then ''catch up''.

Yes, it gets up to 200bpm but has only done this twice. It has gotten up to 160 - 170bpm on a large number of occasions though.

The other night I got a little scared as I hopped into bed as I felt my heart beating all over the place. Fast slow fast slow fast slow fast slow. It's exhausting. It's erratic and literally goes from, say, 140bpm to 90bpm within a beat.

The best way I can describe it is my heart feels confused.

I get upset because it feels like noone close to me understands and my parents think I ''bung'' it on and that it's all in my head...despite the cardiologist saying that there is an actual issue in my heart.

Anyway, sorry for the whinge, and thanks so much you for time =)

Have a great day!

SND, SSS, Sinus Node Dysfunction

by Angelie - 2010-07-20 10:07:54

ALL the same thing, sweetheart. Just a different way of putting it.
I've had it all my life, but didn't really bother me or interfere with my life until I was in my mid-20's.
One thing you need to understand is that a pacemaker will NOT slow down your racing heart.

You can take beta-blockers more than once a day if they're short acting for you. At one point, before my sinus node completely died last April, I was taking enough beta blockade to knock down a horse. 200 mg Toprol XL (extended release) TWICE a day.

I've had a gamut of heart arrhythmias, and 5 ablations. It sounds like to me that they're all atrial which would be your sinus node, or another foci in your upper chamber causing havoc. Seems to me that you definitely have inappropriate sinus tachycardia, and PSVT. Medicine is the only thing that will really treat these effectively. An ablation is 50/50, but it's worth a try if your symptoms are extremely debilitating. It's definitely worth going in to get your heart 3D mapped. They'll be able to pin point where your fast rhythms are coming from then, and hopefully ablate them. Sometimes ablations work, sometimes they don't, and sometimes they work for a few months only for your symptoms to return- or your until your heart decides to do something else (hence my 5 ablations).

I would bet money that if your heart rate is all the way up to 200....it is definitely not a junctional rhythm. Junctional is when you have no sinus node activity at all and the rhythm is coming from your AV node (stepping in to do the sinus node's job). There is such a thing as accelerated junctional rhythm which gets high enough to classify as tachycardia (above 100) but I've never heard of a junctional up into the 200's.

Hope they get you figured out soon. Be patient- it took me 9 years and I'm still a work in progress.

Welcome,
Angelie



sympathies

by shieldspf - 2010-07-21 01:07:33

I don't have any advice, I just want you to know you have friends out here who have suffered and understand. It is an extremely difficult thing to live with and be "normal" with on a day to day basis without thinking about it all the time and having to go about daily life and keep up with the focus and activities of everyone else. I really understand.

Best luck with the treatments that are to come.

Me too!

by dw5281 - 2010-07-21 04:07:26

I have a pacemaker because my heart stops but i'm also on beta blockers to slow it down! Had an interrogation last week & found that it regularly goes over 200bpm (208 211 212 were some it recorded) - was on 2.5mg of bisoprolol fumarate (clearly not enough!) am now on 5mg & probably moving up to 10mg in a couple of months! They asked if I felt it but I have no idea because it mostly does crazy things so I just put up with it!! I thought I was imagining everything that I was feeling & thought they'd tell me to stop being a drama queen! Unfortunately not haha!

Oh & my pulse in school was exactly like yours! I'm now a PE teacher & its still the same!!

debs

SSS here too

by dafrey - 2012-07-19 04:07:22

48 yr male had low heart rate in 40's was getting bouts of dizziness and giddiness too. Pace maker installed in June set low to 60 bpm seem better had to re-tune once bpm would jump to 130 just walking now about 95 brisk walk. Still getting use to it thou. Get short of breath when it was running up to quickly. upper running at 84% and lower <.1% next check up Oct
also notice my bp has risen from 117/60 to 130/84

You know you're wired when...

You participate in the Pacer Olympics.

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