I don't worry about it because it's not a serious heart condition but I found out when I was still in high school that I have Wolff-Parkinson White Syndrome. It sounds serious when you put "syndrome" at the end but it's not, and it's not all that uncommon. It's easily under control in my instance with a 50mg tablet of a beta blocker every day. The iVillage site and Wikipedia have pretty in-depth descriptions of WPW but basically it's this...there is an extra electrical pathway in my heart which at times can bypass the normal one and can cause my heart to beat at an abnormally high rate. A high rate for me would be maybe 120 or so but it's noticeable because it occurs in the absence of any physical activity. It has never happened to me, but heart rates can go up much higher and people can even pass out or get dizzy spells from this.
I can pretty much take a pill everyday for the rest of my life or they can open up my chest and go in there and fry out this extra electrical pathway. My doc says it's not really worth all that trouble as long as the medication keeps my heart rate under control, which it has.
I found this video showing the electrical pathway of the heart. The extra pathway I have they call the bundles of Kent which I think has a nice ring to it.
According to Wikipedia Meat Loaf, Marilyn Manson, LaMarcus Aldridge from the NBA (article here) and some other WWE wrestler I never heard of also have this WPW Syndrome.
5 comments:
They don't "open up" your chest... They actually slip a wire through your vein into your heart and zap it with the wire... It's minimally invasive. You're out that day. It's not a big deal and absolutely worth getting done.
No opening of the chest! I had my extra connection ablated, which was done by a catheter inserted through my femoral artery. I had the procedure done 16 yrs. ago when I was 12. It was fairly new then and I stayed two nights in the hospital. Glad I had it done though cuz meds were not effective. I had fainting spells and rapid heartbeat (200 beats a min) If given the choice I would have the surgery. I have been symptom free since!
I have read about the current procedure. It's much less invasive than it once was when I was diagnosed. When I say High School I mean 1989, so either this ablation procedure didn't exist at the time or it wasn't commonplace yet. I'm not sure which. Either way I've been on the medication now for many years and it has controlled my symptoms sufficiently.
Doctors told me I had to have an ablation becouse I was at a life threatning point..my heart rate went from 250-300bpm for 2 days.
Hey there! I also have the syndrome and when I was 14 years old I had very scary experience with this at school. My heart was beating so hard that you could see the vains pop out my neck! I wasn't even doing any kind of excercise or movement!!
I had to have surgery for this, said the doctor, and I went to Leuven (Belgium). I stayed there for three days and as some people already said, it's a minor surgery (but though very difficult for the surgeons). It's absolutely worth getting this done, because afterwads you are safe for the rest of your life and not you don't have to depend on your medecine.
It's an advice, maybe you can consider the surgery, but if you don't want to, you can stay with your medecine.
The best of luck for you!
greetings from belgium
Post a Comment