what's next

I have wpw and have a pacemaker now. Today I went to hospital and teats showed I have a complete blockage. What does this mean now?

3 Comments

It would be nice if your cardiologist would take time to explain...

by Griddlebone - 2014-10-30 02:10:54

I assume this means that both your usual and accessory pathways are blocked, but it's possible that it was miscommunicated and what they were saying was that your pacemaker was pacing your heart 100% of the time (as is the case for many of us). It can do that even if the block isn't complete, because it will pace at its set rate (or the rate sensed from the atrium) if the heart is slow getting the message through from the atrium to the ventricles.

I was curious and Googled WPW complete block and there were three pretty old scholarly case studies. In the one that was open access, the patient was treated with a pacemaker. Since you have a pacemaker already, I'd say talk to your doc about whether there will be any changes for you going forward.

names

by Tracey_E - 2014-10-30 10:10:53

I'd ask for clarification! I'm not sure what wpw is. There are electrical blocks and arterial blocks. Since you have a pacer, you most likely have electrical which means the signal is blocked going between the atria and ventricles, not at all the same thing as blocked arteries.

Complete means it is blocked all the time. It really doesn't matter at this point if ti's complete or not. The pm fixes all electrical blocks. If the atria beats and the ventricles keep up, the pm kicks in. It's always there watching, working when needed. If you are in complete block all the time, as i am, the pm likely paces nearly 100%.

Here's a great video that explains heart block and how the pm works
http://health.sjm.com/arrhythmia-answers/videos-and-animations

Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome

by Griddlebone - 2014-10-30 12:10:08

Short explanation of WPW: we all have the regular pathway from the SA node through the AV node to the ventricles. WPW adds a second atrium-to-ventricles pathway called the accessory pathway through something called the Bundle of Kent. WPW can be asymptomatic or it can cause atrial tachy or ventricular tachy. One of my students had WPW and did an excellent paper on it for my class. He was asymptomatic.

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