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Supraventricular Tachycardia

Hello everyone. My husband and I were exercising last night. Our new routine is walking for 40 minutes at sunset. We live in Southern US and it's hot as hell down here. Unfortunately, I don't think I ate enough food or drank enough water yesterday and may have been dehydrated. I felt my heart rate increase and had sudden shortness of breath. Managed to get to the ER, was diagnosed with SVT, and converted back to sinus rhythm after 2 rounds of Adenosine. My CBC was all off. Elevated H&H, elevated WBC, elevated platelets, elevated RBCs. TSH was 5.6. Only abnormal on CMP was my potassium at 3.1. I am 39, was diagnosed March of 2016 and have been on Tasigna this entire time. My most recent BCR-ABL result was 2 weeks ago and reported at <0.003. Waiting on PCP and cardiology to call with appointments dates. I am under a severe amount of stress due to coronavirus affecting my job. Does anyone have any advice? My calcium level was normal but they did not check a magnesium level. Yall are the library of endless knowledge so thought I'd hit you all up for any advice as I hope to never have to go through a nightmare like that again.

Hi there,

I am on Tasigna and not had that issue yet but my sister had an SVT this year (no pre medical history) we were all worried sick. Apparently it’s very common she had observations for a few days and then the diagnosis of SVT they did a very common and small procedure where they freeze the abnormal electrical pulse by inserting something through a vain in your groin area up into the heart to freeze the pulse and she immediately returned to normal. The procedure sounds worse than it is not painful just a little uncomfortable naturally. Amazing really. She is highly stressed person and drank too much coffee for many years. Has been told to take things easy.

It might just be a coincidence that you’re on Tasigna and that it does play with heart rhythm.

I am sure you’ll be fine.

Alex

Alex,

Thank you for sharing that story. I am sorry to hear your sister went through it, but I feel better knowing I am not alone.

I had an episode of tachycardia last year when I was hiking in the wilderness.  I had visions of dying on the trail, but I survived.  I rested for about an hour, trying to get it slowed down.  It didn't, so finally we just started back to the trail head, and somewhere along the line it resumed its normal rhythm.

I went in for an EKG, wore a monitor for a month and had an echocardiogram. The good news is that everything was fairly normal and it hasn't repeated.

I suspect it may have something to do with Sprycel because I noticed slightly irregular beats when I first started it at 100mg.

Hopefully your episode won't repeat itself and everything will check out okay.

Hi Kirk, Thank you for sharing. My cardiologist has me wearing a 24 hour monitor. He suggested I start taking a Calcium channel blocker and if the arrythmia happens again he will refer me to a local electrophysiologist. He had no reassurance to give regarding "the why" behind the occurrence. Baffling. Do you have any suspicions regarding your own tachycardic episode? Exertion? Dehydration? Karma?