For years I thought that I was having panic attacks, so I did not think much about it. I would just stop what I was doing, take deep breaths and hold it, and finally it would go away. Sometimes I would even have to pull the car over to the side of the road until I felt better. Of course, I never said anything, because I thought that it was all in my head! One time when I was in Montreal it was so severe that Ian had to take me to the hospital where I was literally rushed down the hall and hooked up to all sorts of machines. My heart rate was 176 and I had delayed saying anything for so many hours that they could not even get a blood pressure. I was conscious but very dizzy. They were able to resume the normal heart rate with some injections, did a few tests, and 7 hours later I was discharged and told to see my cardiologist. Treadmill test and echocardiogram were all good, no obvious problems. A year later, at home, it happened again, this time I was on the golf course with Ian and another couple. After walking two more holes I had to admit that I could not go any further - Ian said "you are going to the hospital". This time my heart rate was 186, but since this time there had not been a delay of many hours one injection took care of it and I was out and home in 3 hours. Another treadmill and echo-cardiogram were done and all was fine.This time the cardiologist suggested that I see a specialist in arrhythmias to see if my problem could be corrected with a catheter ablation procedure.
I just looked out my paperwork from St. Francis Hospital to get the correct name for the procedure that was done by Dr. Ellison Berns and his team at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford. It was done in September 2000. Dr. Berns gave me a very good pamphlet on the procedure and also suggested that I look at the Cleveland Clinic web site The Cleveland Clinic and in particular then information on the procedure Procedures: catheter ablation .
In layman's language Catheter ablation is a non-surgical technique that destroys (ablates) parts of the abnormal electrical pathway that is causing the arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm). The procedure is done as a day patient and takes about 4 hours plus the pre- and post- procedures.
A normal heart rate is 50 to 100 beats per minute.
One common tachycardia with a heart rate of over 100 beats per minute is:
Supraventricular arrhythmias (this is what I had)-- arrhythmias that begin above the ventricles, such as in the upper chambers, or atria. "Supra" means above; "ventricular" refers to the lower chambers of the heart (ventricles).
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