I had an ablation in September and once recovered from the surgery have been fine and stopped all medication at the end of January. I have recently had episodes of sinus rhythm tachycardia. I have been under a considerable amount of stress and haven’t been sleeping well.
I have been checked out at A&E all tests normal. I can’t explain the tachycardia - had an episode today where bpm was around 120.
Anyone else experienced this?
Have the episodes been documented with an ECG? If not, this may be helpful to your ep for diagnosing what is going on.
If the episodes are relatively frequent, a 7 or 14 day patch should catch it. If not frequent, an event monitor like the Kardia 6L or Apple Watch should work.
There are several arrhythmias it might be at that rate, including atrial flutter, but again, without an ECG, hard to really tell.
Jim
Yes - sinus no flutter
Sounds quite a low rate for anything really serious so try not to increase your existing stress worrying about it. Talk to your arrhythmia nurse who may be able to organise a monitor to check if you need re-assurance.
yes I did some 7 years ago. My EP performed another ablation and afterwards I gradually improved. My PAF became more & more less frequent and now I have been AF free for over 2 years.
Pete
The pointer was I have been under a considerable amount of stress and haven’t been sleeping well. That is your explanation.
Chronic stress causes inflammation which will irritate heart. Please try stress management techniques, it’s not what happens in life but how we deal with what happens that is important and builds resilience. I don’t know what’s happening in your life and there is stress that we cannot avoid - which is why having stress management techniques in place is so important.
Health and Wellbeing trumps most none immediately life threatening stuff but our body’s are only built for immediately life threatening emergencies - Fight or Flight - your Autonomic Nervous System - organs most affected - digestion and heart.
Go slower.
My ablation was for atrial flutter, rather than AF. I started to get occasional tachycardia, often in the mornings at breakfast if I remember, but the first time was when bending low into a baby's cot to dismantle it, of all things! When I had it, it was at a similar rate to you, but it eventually went away of its own accord, although I was, at the time, given 1.25mg bisoprolol to take on an "as need" basis. I think post-ablation, the heart can take much longer to settle fully than we expect. One study I read but have now lost suggested just this.
Five years on and I do now get lots of ectopic beats and occasional AF, sadly, and another ablation is on the horizon.
Steve
Are your Tachycardia episodes over quite quickly? I only ask, as I am quite an anxious person - more so at the moment as I have an ablation coming up and if I think I might be going into Afib, if I feel an ectopic for instance, instantly get an adrenaline rush. I can make my HR go up in the 130s within seconds and not go into afib.. I can watch it rise on my watch, which makes me feel even worse of course. Deep breathing and trying to think of happy thoughts always brings it back down fairly quickly. It usually lasts a few mins only - usually only a couple of minutes if I deep breathe properly.
Are you panicking or worrying jyst before they happen?
Definitely not a panicker but have had multiple stresses to deal with caring for a relative who has had surgery and very tight work deadlines. So I guess it is just the stress and lack of sleep
Possibly…yes. Lack of sleep can really add stress. As Bob said earlier, If you have an arrhythmia Nurse, you should probably let them know this is happening as they’ll no doubt set you up wearing a holter monitor for a few days so they can interpret what is going on properly.
CDreamer is absolutely correct. Listen up! Stress needs to be carefully managed by those of us with touchy hearts. It can be done, but it means changing your ways of dealing with others and yourself, changing attitudes, changing priorities, gaining perspective, learning new techniques of stress control like breathing exercises or meditation. You can do it!
After my last ablation, I went into borderline sinus tachycardia/atrial tachycardia with a steady rate and rhythm at 115bpm after three months. I believe the trigger was a too-large meal followed immediately by to much physical exertion. Won’t do that again.
My EP sent me in for a cardioversion, but the medical staff there had a debate whether it was sinus tachycardia (no CV) or atrial tachycardia (CV yes). They thankfully decided on the latter and I got the CV, and have been in NSR ever since with bpm’s in 60’s and 70’s
So a CV is a possible solution. But longterm it sounds like stress management could be a big part of your solution.
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