Robert’s Heart

It’s a new year and there’s no better way to start it off than with a few more arrhythmias.  I’ve had palpitations regularly over the last couple of months.  That seems pretty normal and I’m getting used to having the SVTs every few weeks.  Mostly they are pretty minor but seem to be worse when I’m stressed like when I’m entertaining over the holidays.  Usually they get worse the week after a stressful time.  This week I’ve been having them pretty regularly and got a chance to record one today.  For today’s SVT you can view the Start (CLICK HERE FOR ECG) and End (CLICK HERE FOR ECG).  Both of these are the Lead II view.  This SVT ran about 220 beats per minute and lasted about a minute and a half.

On another note… earlier this week I spilled a bit of freshly brewed hot coffee on my hand.  It hurt, but more interesting was that my body reacted within a second or two by having an immediate and strong SVT.  After dealing with the coffee spill I took a moment to perform a vagal maneuver to convert the SVT back to sinus.  I tend to hold my breath with preasure and slowly let it out concentrating on the beats pounding in my head.  This almost always works for me to convert the SVT.

So, on 12/30/07 I finally caught an SVT on the monitor (ECG: 12/30/07 SVT), that’s great. The problem is, that evening, I kept having them. While it was a bit uncomfortable it did give me an opportunity to capture some good information. Later in the evening on 12/30 I was monitoring myself when I caught a complete SVT and more… This SVT was particularly painful and had a feeling of significant pressure in my chest in addition to the usual light headed feeling. At about three and a half minutes into the SVT the pain and pressure went away, but I still had the arrhythmic feeling in my chest. The ECG still showed an arrhythmia, but it wasn’t regular like the SVT. The next morning my mom identified the irregular rhythm as Atrial Fibrillation. FYI My mom is a retired cardiac care nurse who has been a big help for me to understand (in a novice kinda way) what I’m looking at on the ECGs.

This strip (Click Here For The ECG) shows the beginning of the SVT. At about 14 seconds on that strip a “glitch” in the SVT causes it to speed up from what was 190 BPM to 232 BPM. That’s when the SVT became particularly uncomfortable.

This strip (Click Here For The ECG) shows the conversion from SVT to AF. It is pretty noisy because I was moving around at the time. After a few minutes the AF settled into about 140 BPM (Click Here For The ECG) and lasted for at least 15 minutes when I stopped monitoring. It did eventually, spontaneously, convert to a sinus rhythm.

I built the little ECG machine to capture an episode of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) for the doctor. After waiting several months for something to occur I captured this SVT on December 30th 2007. It lasted several minutes. This SVT ran at about 220 beats per minute. This strip shows the last 2 seconds of the SVT and the conversion to sinus rhythm: Click Here To View