Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome

My brother (age 65) has had occasional afib episodes (and tachy episodes) for years. He was diagnosed a while back with WPW. Is being sent for ablation tomorrow. Anyone else have WPW? And was ablation curative for you, if so?

Any advice for ablation recovery? Do's and dont's? My brother is not one to do much reading on medical issues, so he won't look into this himself. He lives alone in the forest on an island (Gabriola). I want to make sure he does okay post-ablation.

kim

Not for me, but for the nice clerk at our local fireplace & patio retail outlet. We paid our chimney cleaning bill (insurance requires at least an annual cleaning by a pro) about three weeks ago and the banter got around to dealing with heart problems. Turns out she was diagnosed with WPW in her teens, and she was in a bad way. She was eventually ablated, although I don't believe it was soon after she began to have problems. When the WPW was diagnosed, she was ablated shortly afterwards. She's alive and well, and states that she has apparently been relieved permanently from the affliction. So, try to be optimistic. I'm going for my second ablation in seven months next Tuesday, and lemme tell ya...it ain't been no picnic since the week after the first ablation when the wheels fell off for me. Am I optimistic in view of the hell I've endured over the past 27 weeks? Yes. The alternative is an even worse hell.

Everyone is different in how they experience ablation, how they recover from it, whether it is more of an ordeal than for others, and so on. Even the demeanor of those around the patient can have an influence. Stress is not good. Becoming too active too soon is also not good. I would counsel a lot of rest the first four days...at least. I jumped into a hot tub the morning of day six. Let's just say it wasn't a smart thing to do. I won't repeat it next week when I am recovering from Round Two. No quick movements, no long walks, no lifting of anything over 4 kg (9 pounds), take stairs carefully, and slowly.

He will be given information sheets, both before and after. He should do what they advise. They don't advise us to be optimistic, but I will.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2023 02:02AM by gloaming.

Thank you gloaming for the feedback. WPW is supposed to have a high success rate from ablation - higher than "ordinary" afib. i'm not sure if that's because the extra electrical pathways are more clearly identified in WPW, or what. I certainly hope it works for him.

sorry to hear you are preparing for 2nd ablation. good luck with that.

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PoetKim
Thank you gloaming for the feedback. WPW is supposed to have a high success rate from ablation - higher than "ordinary" afib. i'm not sure if that's because the extra electrical pathways are more clearly identified in WPW, or what. I certainly hope it works for him.

sorry to hear you are preparing for 2nd ablation. good luck with that.

Have a good friend with WPW and a WPW ablation. WPW has an extra pathway(s) in the AV node. They can be reentrant, sending signals back to the atria from the ventricles, Normally it is a one way pathway. The WPW ablation just kills the the extra pathway. It is much simpler than an afib ablation with a very high success rate.

One of my daughter's friends had an WPW ablation in his 20's.

WPW people have a higher risk for afib.

My friend still has some weird rhythms when she exercises & many PAC's which are exacerbated when she eats a high carb diet. Her story was published here. [www.afibbers.org]

Thanks for the info, George. I will read her story with interest.

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PoetKim
Thanks for the info, George. I will read her story with interest.

As an aside, my understanding is that WPW tends to have a strong inherited component. The mother of my friend I posted about above also had WPW.

The two way path in the AV node is what gives WPW the ability to drive the heart rate really high.

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GeorgeN

As an aside, my understanding is that WPW tends to have a strong inherited component. The mother of my friend I posted about above also had WPW.

The two way path in the AV node is what gives WPW the ability to drive the heart rate really high.

Is there any specific test for WPW other than looking at EKG when patient is in afib/arrhythmia/tachy? The last time i went to ER with afib, I asked the doctor if it could be WPW because my brother had it, and he said no, I don't have that. I think my brother's diagnosis of WPW has been done entirely from EKGs in ER.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2023 05:58PM by PoetKim.

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PoetKim

Is there any specific test for WPW other than looking at EKG when patient is in afib/arrhythmia/tachy? The last time i went to ER with afib, I asked the doctor if it could be WPW because my brother had it, and he said no, I don't have that. I think my brother's diagnosis of WPW has been done entirely from EKGs in ER.

My understanding is ECG when out of rhythm. Here is an article: [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

The short answer is no.

Diagnosing things from ECGs ranges from the trivially obvious to the sublimely complex. This question definitely leans toward the complex side. Patients with WPW are usually diagnosed based on ECG findings during arrhythmia events, which George's link explains. But some patients do exhibit WPW patterns during NSR. We're talking about very few people, like 2-4 out of 1000, and I think you'd need a pretty sharp cardiologist to spot it because it's quite subtle and so rare.

Here's another article discussing this side of it. Complicated stuff.

Thanks Carey. I'll look at that article too. I want to understand this better.