nsvt

During my last interrogation it was noted that I had one incident of nsvt. Has that happened to anyone else? What did they do about it? I am being sent for a thallium stress test and an echo. I had a pacemaker put in about a year and a half ago for complete heart block.

2 Comments

how fast?

by Tracey_E - 2013-09-13 01:09:48

How fast was it and how long did it last? Many of us with chb get episodes of svt. As long as it's not too fast and not sustained, it's generally considered harmless. I've never had any additional testing.

It's possible you were doing something to cause it. I had a different tech one check up and she mentioned all my episodes were between 7 and 7:30 am. I pointed out that I do a 7am boot camp. Sometimes I get a short run overnight, but usually they're exercise-induced.

Why?

by golden_snitch - 2013-09-13 02:09:33

Hi Liz!

You know, the thing about having a cardiac device is that it will pick up things you might have had your whole life or for years already, and that are of no concern. In some cases that is a good thing, for instance if longer and/or frequent episodes atrial fibrillation are thereby detected, and the patient can then be treated at least with blood thinning medications to prevent a stroke. But those devices also often pick up just very short episodes of atrial arrhythmias - a classic would be 5 seconds of atrial fibrillation or one minute of an SVT - which no one should be worried about. However, there are doctors who'll start all kinds of tests just because a patient has had one episode of something. Some doctors overreact, and they also trust the pacemaker data too much. Pacemakers and other devices often record artifacts, so you always need a holter monitor or event monitor that the arrhythmia it has recorded is really there.

In your case I really don't understand why one episode of an SVT makes your doctor order two tests that will show if your heart muscle is healthy; he has ordered no further arrhythmia testing. Anyone, even with the healthiest heart muscle, can have an SVT. SVTs in general do not indicate that there is something wrong with the heart muscle; this is different in ventricular tachycardia or large amounts of ventricular extrabeats.
And for just one SVT episode which you, apparently, did not even notice, I would not have done any further testing at all. So, I question a bit that those tests you are going to have are necessary.

Best wishes
Inga

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