Since she was a young girl, Sandra Moore, 46, of Glen Ellyn, had episodes every few months when her heart started racing. “It was like a light switch turning on. My heart would jump from about 80 beats per minute to about 200 beats per minute,’ she explained.
When she was younger, she could carry on a conversation and pretend nothing was happening. As an adult, the experience was more intense. Sometimes she covered up by pretending to tie her shoe while she waited for the wildly beating heart to settle down. It could last five minutes or even as long as 30 minutes, and when it was done, she was perspiring and exhausted.
“I brought it to the attention of doctors quite often,’ Moore said. She had her heart examined with electrocardiograph (ECG) in the doctor's office more than once, but no problem was detected as long as her heart was not racing. Meanwhile, the episodes continued to get stronger. Finally, her primary care physician recommended she wear a Holter monitor, a small, portable ECG device that recorded her heart's activity continuously for 30 days, while she went about her normal activities. After two tries with the Holter monitor, the abnormal heart rhythm was finally captured on tape, and Moore was diagnosed with arrhythmia.
Millions of Americans have arrhythmias, most of which are harmless, but certain types of arrhythmia can be life threatening, especially in combination with other heart disease. About 350,000 deaths per year in the United States are attributed to arrhythmias. Moore's problem was diagnosed as a supraventricular tachycardia, which means that the very fast heart rate was triggered by abnormal electrical impulses originating from her upper heart chambers. It was not a particularly dangerous type. Moore was investigating her options when she had a frightening wake-up call.
While in the car with her nine-year-old daughter, she felt her heart flutter. She told her daughter, “My heart is racing, I'm going to pull over,’ but the next thing she knew, her car was up on the curb. She had blacked out briefly. After that, she knew she could no longer live with this problem and risk endangering not only herself, but also her children and others.
Moore saw David Wilber, M.D., an electrophysiologist at Loyola University Health System (Loyola). Physicians at Loyola perform more electrophysiology procedures than any other medical center in Illinois, and Wilber receives referrals for difficult-to-treat arrhythmias from physicians across the nation.
“The heartbeat is controlled by electrical pathways that coordinate muscle contractions,’ Wilber explained. “Some people are born with extra pathways; some develop abnormal pathways later in life. Arrhythmias can be treated with medication, implantable pacemakers or defibrillators. Supraventricular tachycardia can be treated very successfully with catheter ablation.’
In fall 2002, Moore had an outpatient catheter ablation procedure. Through catheters (small tubes) inserted into arteries in the groin area and neck, Wilber used tiny instruments to identify the abnormal electrical pathway in her heart and ablate (destroy) it with high frequency radio waves.
“If I had known how simple this was, I would have done it earlier,’ Moore said. She has had no more incidents in approximately two years since the procedure. “I am absolutely thrilled I had this done. I lived in fear after I blacked out in the car. Now I have peace of mind.’
Loyola University Health System's (LUHS) heart and heart surgery program was listed as the top program in Illinois, according to U.S.News & World Report's annual America's Best Hospitals rankings of more than 6,012 hospitals nationwide. This is the second year in a row LUHS' heart program was ranked at the top in Illinois. Call (708) 216-8563 for information or to make an appointment with a specialist.
Know Your Heart Risk
Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women in the United States. Common risk factors include:
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