rat115 Posted April 14, 2011 Posted April 14, 2011 I had to take my 11 yr old son into the ER tonight. He was at a youth group and was sitting around about to have dinner when his heart rate suddenly jumped. After getting back over there myself, I found that his heart rate was almost impossible to get manually. I ended up taking him down to where our ambulances are housed, and his pulse showed around 246 when I put him on the pulse ox. There was another EMT there working on paperwork, and both of us had a hard time getting a B/P. He was complaining of headache, dizziness, nausea and starting to note chest/body pain. I walked him across the alley to the hospital and into the ER. They found the same for his heart rate and finally got a manual B/P of 84/P. We tried vagal maneuvers with him twice and they didn't work. They used adenosine on him after he'd been in SVT for just a bit over 2 hrs and cardioverted him. After the cardiovert, they found delta waves and started talking about WPW Syndrome. So, now we've been flown to Denver Children's and waiting to find out more. Prayers would be greatly appreciated. (TIA!)
lpndj6 Posted April 14, 2011 Posted April 14, 2011 Youre family will be in my prayers.. I had issues as a teenager myself with what they then called PAT (this was back in the mid to late 80s) and I thought Id outgrown it until I had a reoccurance one night when i was really sick and run down and was running 208 (I was borderline septic come to find out as well) while in Nursing School and since then Ive had sporadic issues on and off even with a holter monitor they never caught anything. (I previous had had a bought of chest pain and such which landed me in the ER due to the rapid heart rate just below SVT level running int he 140s) got a full workup even had a nuke stress test (I was 36 at the time).. I hope for your sons sake they can identify for sure what the cause is and can treat it because believe me its no fun I used to have issues bout 3-4X a year (Scariest was one night I was in the basement of my house where my bedroom was and I went majorly SVT and was laying on the ground couldnt get up and couldnt call for help or anything I had to hope it stopped on its own and actually feared that here I was at 16yrs old I was gonna die right there on the floor without being able get any help before somebody found me because I just couldnt move or speak or anything)... SO I can understand the fear your son went through and probably still is and I Hope they can find it and treat him. WPW is pretty treatable as you know now adays a simple ablation procedure usually is able to resolve it without any long term issues (unless your a professional hockey goalie, poor guy has had ablations I think 3 times now in 2 yrs in Toronto and they sitll arent positive they got the right errant pacer site) I had to take my 11 yr old son into the ER tonight. He was at a youth group and was sitting around about to have dinner when his heart rate suddenly jumped. After getting back over there myself, I found that his heart rate was almost impossible to get manually. I ended up taking him down to where our ambulances are housed, and his pulse showed around 246 when I put him on the pulse ox. There was another EMT there working on paperwork, and both of us had a hard time getting a B/P. He was complaining of headache, dizziness, nausea and starting to note chest/body pain. I walked him across the alley to the hospital and into the ER. They found the same for his heart rate and finally got a manual B/P of 84/P. We tried vagal maneuvers with him twice and they didn't work. They used adenosine on him after he'd been in SVT for just a bit over 2 hrs and cardioverted him. After the cardiovert, they found delta waves and started talking about WPW Syndrome. So, now we've been flown to Denver Children's and waiting to find out more. Prayers would be greatly appreciated. (TIA!)
PCP Posted April 14, 2011 Posted April 14, 2011 rat115, My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. Being a dad myself I could only imagine how worried you are for your son. Keep us posted. Take care, Brian
Kaisu Posted April 14, 2011 Posted April 14, 2011 Nothing is as difficult as a sick child. On the positive side, WPW is well known, documented, researched and the treatment is very successful. You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.
rat115 Posted April 14, 2011 Author Posted April 14, 2011 We didn't get past the ED. After he was cardioverted at our local hospital, he stayed at or below 100 bpm. They didn't admit him since he didn't go back into SVT. They said that there were definitely delta waves that show WPW in all of the ECGs that were done after the cardioversion, so that's official. We head back to Denver on May 11th for the first available appointment with the cardiologist who specializes in this. He's still having some dizzy spells if he stands up too fast, so I'm glad that we'll be in Denver for a few more hours. I'll bring him back in a heartbeat if I think he's going back into SVT and we can't get it stopped with vagal maneuvers. Now, we're to the wait and watch until the tests start to document where the area is that's causing the WPW and make sure that nothing else is going on. Hopefully, it won't take long after the appointment on the 11th. (He's supposed to go to his dad's for the summer and that's 6.5-7 hrs away from Children's in Denver.) Please pardon any typos. I've been up since before 6 am yesterday and only had enough cat naps to equal about 30-40 minutes worth of sleep.
HERBIE1 Posted April 14, 2011 Posted April 14, 2011 Nothing on earth worse than when your child is sick. Positive energy and thoughts your way, and as others have said, thankfully this sounds like a very treatable problem.
MetalMedic Posted April 14, 2011 Posted April 14, 2011 (edited) As a parent who has had a child flown to another facility with unknowns, I can totally understand what you are going through. My thoughts are with you and please provide updates when you can. -MetalMedic Edited April 14, 2011 by MetalMedic
rat115 Posted April 15, 2011 Author Posted April 15, 2011 Ended up taking him back before we got out of town. We stopped at a store and was in for a total of about 15 minutes. He started with a h/a and chest pain that were at 4/10 when he first admitted that he had them. He progressed to SOB, dizziness, and nausea. He did a champ of a job of trying to pass out on the way as we got near the ER. Got him back and he ended up getting admitted to the cardiac floor. They started him on a beta blocker to get things calmed down. He's still got the h/a and CP at 2-3/10. Kid's not wanting to get out of bed except to go to the bathroom. Tests start tomorrow morning since we had to bring him back in.
scubanurse Posted April 15, 2011 Posted April 15, 2011 Ended up taking him back before we got out of town. We stopped at a store and was in for a total of about 15 minutes. He started with a h/a and chest pain that were at 4/10 when he first admitted that he had them. He progressed to SOB, dizziness, and nausea. He did a champ of a job of trying to pass out on the way as we got near the ER. Got him back and he ended up getting admitted to the cardiac floor. They started him on a beta blocker to get things calmed down. He's still got the h/a and CP at 2-3/10. Kid's not wanting to get out of bed except to go to the bathroom. Tests start tomorrow morning since we had to bring him back in. Let me know if you need anything... I'm not far from Children's and can bring you food or anything you need. I dated a guy who developed WPW...very scary for sure. He's at a great place to have it treated though. Please don't hesitate to PM me if you need anything. K
rat115 Posted April 15, 2011 Author Posted April 15, 2011 Let me know if you need anything... I'm not far from Children's and can bring you food or anything you need. I dated a guy who developed WPW...very scary for sure. He's at a great place to have it treated though. Please don't hesitate to PM me if you need anything. K Thanks, Katie. Not sure how long we're going to be here. They did an echo on his heart this morning. Waiting for word back on that. They put him on a beta blocker, and now his heart rate keeps dropping down into the 50s and bouncing up to the 90s. They had it drop down to 48 during the echo, so not sure if they're going to leave him at this dosage. It's wait and see for now.
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