It's been a year since I had the catheter ablation for AVNRT. The doc said there was a 1-5% chance that the tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) could return after the procedure. Lo and behold, within the last couple of months I started feeling the tachycardia on occasion - mostly when getting up quickly from a lying position, or occasionally during hard riding.
So the doc put me on a monitor for a month to record the episodes during my riding. The monitor records automatically during an abnormal heart rate - I didn't feel any episodes during the time I had the monitor, but the monitor recorded a few times anyway. It recorded a heart rate about 250-300 bpm while riding! There's no reason to believe anything is wrong with the monitor, as the techs did a resting baseline recording every time I called in the post-ride recordings.
Based on the wave pattern, the doc said the tachycardia isn't life threatening, but suggested that I control it with medication or have another ablation done. I don't want to go the medication route (there's other threads on beta blockers), and I'm skeptical as to the benefit of another ablation, since during the last ablation the doc was somewhat limited in how much tissue he could burn without risking leaving me with a pacemaker (I had the "atypical" version of AVNRT, which is a little harder to cure than the "typical" version).
So, even though it's against the doc's advice, I'm strongly considering the "do nothing" option. Even with the occasional recurrence, I'm still feeling much better than before the ablation a year ago. From what I could gather from the doc, the worst that could happen is that I could feel lightheaded and possibly pass out due to rapid heartbeat - but that seems like a long shot based on my previous episodes.
Has anyone else been in this situation?