ventricular tachycardia

Hi all:  

Well, I've had my dual lead pacemaker for about 4 months now and I have been doing very well with it.  Did my first remote download about a week ago and apparently one episode of venricular tachycardia occured for about 2 seconds at around midnight a month or so ago.  I usually am up until about 1 a.m. every night and I felt nothing at all when the episode occurred.  No other episodes showed up either before or since and I have felt fine.  My doctor now wants me to do a chemical stress test and also get an echocardiogram to try and see what's going on.   

My question to the forum is what happens if I now need a defibrillator installed.  Do they remove the existing pacer, or is the defib installed as a separate unit??  Wish I had thought to ask that question earlier today at the doctor's office, but didn't.  Thanks for any insight into my situation.--  Pat

4 Comments

Non-sustained VT

by golden_snitch - 2016-06-11 03:20:49

Hi!

At the moment I'd not even think about an ICD. Episodes of non-sustained ventricular tachycardia are seen in many device patients. I have had episodes of 8 - 12 beats, so a bit more than 2 seconds, and my EPs never worried at all about them. It's just something the pacemaker picks up. If all healthy people had such a device it would probably show up in many completely healthy people. Maybe you even had episodes like that before the pacemaker went in.

I think your EP is a bit overreacting, especially since this was only ONE episode lasting two seconds. But let him to do the tests, just to be on the safe side.

My episodes never triggered any tests, and I was seen by the former president of the European Heart Rhythm Association, and am seen now by the current president of that association - both are highly specialized in the treatment of VT.

So, in my opinion absolutely no need to panic now and think of an ICD implant or some other treatment.

Best wishes!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25790151

http://www.docguide.com/nonsustained-ventricular-tachycardia-benign-routine-monitoring-pacemaker-patients

Thanks

by PatCan - 2016-06-11 11:47:40

Thank you golden-snitch for your information--very comforting to know this--  Pat

The odd VT

by DampDog - 2016-06-11 15:24:57

I'm new to this myself so learning as I go. I had my CRT-D implanted a little over 3 months ago and have had two subsiquent pacemaker interrogations. Both showed I'd had a number of short, 3-5 second runs of VT/abnormal rhythems. The device had recorded them but had not intervened in any way. My device also has Opti-Vol that monitors fluid levels associated with heart failure and that had also been triggered. The comments from the pacing tech were that there was absolutely nothing unusual. Even though my device has an inbuilt defib as yet my consultant has not even activated it as such. Though I am set up to be paced back into rhythem should I need it.

I guess there will be all sorts of questions that I should be asking the pacing Tech, but as yet I've not worked out what that should be.   

Not sure about...

by Hoser - 2016-06-11 22:52:18

Your condition, but I have a dual lead with ICD because of heart failure, and I had a echo   approximately 3-4 months after implant to see if my ejection fraction was helped by the pacemaker or not (it was, I am back to 'normal' function!)

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