Posted: 4/19/2009 7:25:19 PM EDT
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Just recently my grandmother passed out while at work. They thought it was because of an anxiety attack after ruling out a heart attack. Just yesterday she passed out again, though, and now they found out that she has arrhythmia.
Can someone please inform me what the hell this is and how serious it is? At first they thought the temporary irregular heartbeat was because of the anxiety attack they thought she had but they now think that she might be passing out BECAUSE of the arrythmia. Now, if it's serious enough to cause her to pass out twice in the same week, could this potentially be life threatening? What kind of treatment are we looking at? |
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what kind of arrhythmia? It could be serious or nothing to worry about at all. I don't know. I just heard this 2nd hand from someone that heard from the doctor and I didn't get many details... It wasn't anything she's had from birth AFAIK. edit: all I know is that her heart beat was rapid and irregular shortly after she passed out. edit2: It sounded a lot like AV nodal reentrant tachycardia or V-Tach. |
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It's irregular heart beat, either slow or fast but always irregular, not enough O2 to brain and you can drop like the sac of potatoes. Often with high blood pressure or drop of it. Other complication too. Can run into tachycardia(super fast bit). That's how my wife landed 747 in Goose Bay in Labrador on our way from South Africa with 450 upset people on board. |
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If she's throwing PAC's or PVC's, she needs to get a cardiologist and possibly an electrophyisiologist lined up...NOW.
She may be a candidate for an ICD or pacemaker. Tachycardic activity can indicate congestive heart failure. HH ETA: Make sure she gets her ejection fraction checked, too. |
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The heart has a normal pattern when it beats.....you can easily google images that show diagrams of normal ekg patterns.
An arrythmia is any interruption or change in that pattern. There are many kinds of arrythmias.....many produce no obvious symptoms. Some are harmless, like the occasional PVC (skipped heart beat), others are potentially dangerous and some when they occur interfere with the hearts rythm seriously enough that the heart can't pump enough blood to perfuse organs. The brains is especially susceptible to decreases in oxygen perfusion due to decreased blood flow. When this happens a person has a syncopal episode.....they faint. Any time a person's heart beat changes to the point it causes fainting they have a significant problem...they need to see a cardiologist or internal medicine doctor. Most arrythmias can be controlled well....if you give a doctor the chance to evaluate and treat the problem. Your grandmother got a warning sign that she needs to address her heart problem.... It's not a death sentence....if she takes care of her health and follows her doctors advice. |
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There are many dysrhythmias that can cause low perfusion. Some can easily be corrected with medications or fixing an electrolyte imbalance.
Some require more aggressive treatments that can be quite invasive. Best if you could find out for sure what the dysrhythmia is. |
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Find out what kind of arrhythmia (or more correctly, DYSrhythmia) she's having. If it's causing her to pass out, then obviously it's not good, especially given her age. HOWEVER, the vast majority of dysrhythmias are treatable through medication and/or pacemaker/internal defibrillators. |
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Quoted: CHANCES ARE, that if it was fast and irregular, then it was some kind of atrial tachycardia/atrial fibrillation with RVR (rapid ventricular rate). It's very, very common in older people to have A-Fib, but if it's a new onset, then she needs to take medication to get it under control, and she's at a higher risk of stroke (because it can break a thrombus free) and will likely need a blood thinner. (typically this can be a combo of digoxin and coumadin, but there are endless meds) If the heart beats too rapidly like that, then it doesn't have the chance to fill up completely, and therefore less blood is going to get pumped out causing low blood pressure/unconsciousness.Quoted: what kind of arrhythmia? It could be serious or nothing to worry about at all. I don't know. I just heard this 2nd hand from someone that heard from the doctor and I didn't get many details... It wasn't anything she's had from birth AFAIK. edit: all I know is that her heart beat was rapid and irregular shortly after she passed out. edit2: It sounded a lot like AV nodal reentrant tachycardia or V-Tach. It's treatable.  |
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Quoted: Quoted: It's irregular heart beat, either slow or fast but always irregular Not always. V-tach and 3rd degree heart blocks can be quite regular. The thing is though that both dysrhythmias can cause poor perfusion. SVT is regular as well.... but incredibly FAST! |
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Towley, like others have said, dysrhythmias can run the gamut from fairly nominal to quite severe. They are, however, generally quite treatable via medications, surgical interventions and / or pacer / defib placement.
I will caution you to take medical advice in GD with a large grain of salt. Several well meaning folk in this thread are extrapolating too much from personal experiences. Make sure your GM is under the care of a good cardiologist, and trust them to do their job. |
| Most of my life my heartrate will go insane fast. Sometimes triggered if I bend over and then straighten up. Duration, three to ten minutes. I'll begin to get dizzy and usually it slams back down low again, really irregular for about a minute. Then I'm drained for the day. Had it about once a month or so for twenty years. Never does it at the doctor though. |
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It's irregular heart beat, either slow or fast but always irregular Not always. V-tach and 3rd degree heart blocks can be quite regular. The thing is though that both dysrhythmias can cause poor perfusion. SVT is regular as well.... but incredibly FAST! And junctional rhythms are regular. Accelerated junctional can even be at a nice, normal rate. Anyone who says dysrhythmias are always irregular is probably extrapolating too much from a personal experience with a-fib. |
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Quoted: I'm thinking that maybe he meant 'abnormal' instead of irregular. It makes a big difference to us, but a lay person could easily swap the terminology. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It's irregular heart beat, either slow or fast but always irregular Not always. V-tach and 3rd degree heart blocks can be quite regular. The thing is though that both dysrhythmias can cause poor perfusion. SVT is regular as well.... but incredibly FAST! And junctional rhythms are regular. Accelerated junctional can even be at a nice, normal rate. Anyone who says dysrhythmias are always irregular is probably extrapolating too much from a personal experience with a-fib. |
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If she's throwing PAC's or PVC's, she needs to get a cardiologist and possibly an electrophyisiologist lined up...NOW. She may be a candidate for an ICD or pacemaker. Tachycardic activity can indicate congestive heart failure. HH ETA: Make sure she gets her ejection fraction checked, too. Everyone throws the occasional PVC. CHF bad enough to cause syncope would be readily diagnosable on clinical exam alone, If they're thinking dysrhythmia, I'd imagine it's a safe bet that CHF / cardiomyopathy isn't too evident on exam. However, telling a cardiologist to check an EF is a lot like telling a plumber to check the pipes. |
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I'm thinking that maybe he meant 'abnormal' instead of irregular. It makes a big difference to us, but a lay person could easily swap the terminology. Quoted:
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It's irregular heart beat, either slow or fast but always irregular Not always. V-tach and 3rd degree heart blocks can be quite regular. The thing is though that both dysrhythmias can cause poor perfusion. SVT is regular as well.... but incredibly FAST! And junctional rhythms are regular. Accelerated junctional can even be at a nice, normal rate. Anyone who says dysrhythmias are always irregular is probably extrapolating too much from a personal experience with a-fib.
You may well be right. I'm just used to dealing with the A-fib crowd. My BIL just got a pacer. I had him convinced it was blue tooth capable, and that he couldn't use his cell phone any more. RN wasn't amused. 
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Quoted: You may well be right. I'm just used to dealing with the A-fib crowd. My BIL just got a pacer. I had him convinced it was blue tooth capable, and that he couldn't use his cell phone any more. RN wasn't amused.  The OP said that it WAS rapid and IRREGULAR ("sounded like AV nodal reentry tachycardia), so A-Fib is certainly a possibility. Of course, so is PSVT with PVCs, etc, etc, etc. Who knows? Need an EKG, and a doctor. |
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You may well be right. I'm just used to dealing with the A-fib crowd. My BIL just got a pacer. I had him convinced it was blue tooth capable, and that he couldn't use his cell phone any more. RN wasn't amused.
The OP said that it WAS rapid and IRREGULAR ("sounded like AV nodal reentry tachycardia), so A-Fib is certainly a possibility. Of course, so is PSVT with PVCs, etc, etc, etc. Who knows? Need an EKG, and a doctor. Yup, we're just cross talking a bit. I was referring to the 'all dysrhythmias are irregular' post rather then the initial post. I see A-fib as a good guess as well, just from a statistical perspective if nothing else. A significant percentage of the over 65 crowd are walking around in A-fib. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: You may well be right. I'm just used to dealing with the A-fib crowd. My BIL just got a pacer. I had him convinced it was blue tooth capable, and that he couldn't use his cell phone any more. RN wasn't amused. The OP said that it WAS rapid and IRREGULAR ("sounded like AV nodal reentry tachycardia), so A-Fib is certainly a possibility. Of course, so is PSVT with PVCs, etc, etc, etc. Who knows? Need an EKG, and a doctor. Yup, we're just cross talking a bit. I was referring to the 'all dysrhythmias are irregular' post rather then the initial post. I see A-fib as a good guess as well, just from a statistical perspective if nothing else. A significant percentage of the over 65 crowd are walking around in A-fib.  I'm not arguing with you at all, I knew we were on the same page. (We usually are....) You and I will probably have A-Fib ourselves someday. ASSuming we all live that long, eh? |
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Just recently my grandmother passed out while at work. They thought it was because of an anxiety attack after ruling out a heart attack. Just yesterday she passed out again, though, and now they found out that she has arrhythmia. Can someone please inform me what the hell this is and how serious it is? At first they thought the temporary irregular heartbeat was because of the anxiety attack they thought she had but they now think that she might be passing out BECAUSE of the arrythmia. Now, if it's serious enough to cause her to pass out twice in the same week, could this potentially be life threatening? What kind of treatment are we looking at? Yes, it's life-threatening; her heart could simply stop, not restart, and she'd be dead. Pacemaker is the most likely treatment. My aunt just went through the EXACT same thing last month. Expect a week or two of evaluations with some sort of fancy heart monitor. My aunt said they had to determine exactly what type of arrhythmia it was so that they could use the correct sort of pacemaker. The surgery isn't too bad, all things considered. |
| Update: It is, in fact, v-tach. Once they found out it was v-tach I guess things started moving a little quicker so I'm assuming it's a bit more high priority than other forms. I think she has already seen the cardiologist and it sounds like they are going to operate but we'll see what he says today. |
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Update: It is, in fact, v-tach. Once they found out it was v-tach I guess things started moving a little quicker so I'm assuming it's a bit more high priority than other forms. I think she has already seen the cardiologist and it sounds like they are going to operate but we'll see what he says today. I have supraventricular tachycardia. I am 29 years old. They did an ablation procedure and could not get it to act up. Last Monday they did a tilt test where they strap you to a table and monitor your heart while lying down and standing up. I did fine until they put nitroglycerin under my tongue to lower my blood pressure and then my heart rate went to 160. It has been as high as 200. Apparently, when my BP drops at any given time for any given reason my heart compensates and I go into the "fight or flight" with the body releasing extra adrenaline or whatever and my heart goes haywire, beating fast, making me short of breath, tired, etc. Certain arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation can cause blood clots and she would need Coumadin or another blood thinner for life. Regular tachycardia may just need an ablation, possibly a pacemaker, but more than likely just try some beta blockers. |
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Ventricular Tachycardia is different from SVT. VT is generally considered a life-threatening arrhythmia, although there are some exceptions. Passing out during a VT episode is serious. Some patients have VT episodes that create no symptoms.
What caused the VT? If it's not due to a blocked artery or an electrolyte imbalance, then she'll probably get an ICD (implanted defibrillator). They might do an echocardiogram to determine how well the pumping function of her heart is. People with weaker hearts ( poor pumping function) can easily go into VT. She'll also be on meds, probably amiodarone unless she can't have it for some reason. The ICD does two things. First, it can pace if her heart slows. All ICDs manufactured since around 1999 can do this. Secondly, it waits for an arrhythmia to occur. If it does, the ICD then either pace-terminates the rhythm or delivers a shock (or shocks) to terminate it. Approximately 75% of VTs are able to be pace-terminated with no shock necessary. |
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You may well be right. I'm just used to dealing with the A-fib crowd. My BIL just got a pacer. I had him convinced it was blue tooth capable, and that he couldn't use his cell phone any more. RN wasn't amused.
The OP said that it WAS rapid and IRREGULAR ("sounded like AV nodal reentry tachycardia), so A-Fib is certainly a possibility. Of course, so is PSVT with PVCs, etc, etc, etc. Who knows? Need an EKG, and a doctor. Yup, we're just cross talking a bit. I was referring to the 'all dysrhythmias are irregular' post rather then the initial post. I see A-fib as a good guess as well, just from a statistical perspective if nothing else. A significant percentage of the over 65 crowd are walking around in A-fib. I'm not arguing with you at all, I knew we were on the same page. (We usually are....) You and I will probably have A-Fib ourselves someday. ASSuming we all live that long, eh?
FTR (and I like both of you guys [parent and grandparent posters]), Afib with RVR is not nearly as likely to cause true syncope as a more malignant arrhythmia like VT. I agree that the original poster saying "irregular" does make you think of atrial fib with a very rapid rate. To the original poster: You said she's having "surgery." I hope that by "surgery" you mean coronary angiography ("heart cath") ASAP. |