Irresistible Izzy: Holter Monitor Results

As I mentioned in earlier, Izzy did wear a 48 hour holter monitor in mid-February to see how well the electrical circuitry in her heart is working and what type of heart rhythms she has happening.

Note the grey monitor on her waist. That connected to several stickers on her chest, which measured the electrical activity of Izzy's heart.

On Thursday, February 25, 2016, Izzy's cardiologist called me with the results of the holter monitor. Three years ago when Izzy did this test, she had 261 PACs--premature artial contractions. Everyone has those. They are no big deal. But, in February, Izzy had 10,258 PACs during the 48 hours. Dr. Cutler indicated that she is having PACs 3.8% of the time. Dr. Cutler was not necessarily concerned about the shear number in and of itself because that can be typical. However, she was concerned about the drastic change in PACs in three years.

Three years ago, Izzy had no PVCs--premature ventricular contractions. In February, she had 51. Again, not that big of a deal.

What was more concerning to Dr. Cutler was that Izzy had 6 times when the PACs came 3 times in a row--artrial runs--and a couple times with 2 PVCs in a row--couplets. Dr. Cutler was concerned that those could be something. And her first thought was to make sure Izzy's digoxin dose was not at a toxic level.

So, Friday, February 26, 2016, about an hour before Izzy's evening dose of digoxin, she had a blood draw. You all should really see her get blood draws. She hates them, she fears them because she knows they hurt, but she sits still and lets them draw away. She even sits still when the tech is digging around for a vein. Izzy may scream, but she sits still because she knows that helps get it done more quickly and with less pain. She is my rockstar, professional patient.

Anyway, Izzy had blood drawn on that Friday. The lab results came back a week ago Monday, showing that Izzy is not getting a toxic level of digoxin. Rather, her levels were a little on the low side. Fortunately, Izzy wasn't suffering from digitalis toxicity, but we didn't know why she had this big change in her rhythm over the last three years or even if we should be worried about the atrial runs and PVC couplets. Dr. Cutler had told me that if Izzy wasn't toxic, she had figure out what the next course of action would be. Needless to say, Dale and I were beyond worried and concerned.

Last night, we finally heard the next steps. Dr. Cutler indicated that Izzy is having episodes of supraventricular tachycardia or SVT. Izzy had SVT has a new born. Some of our scariest moments in those first few months were related to SVT (post here and here). Izzy was treated with medication for it then, but the medication was stopped as she grew and no longer had the episodes. Dr. Cutler is inclined to do nothing more at this point either, except watch Izzy and attempt to get her to an EKG machine when we think she is having symptoms. However, Dr. Cutler wants to be certain about the decision before finalizing and will be contacting a pediatric cardiologist who specializes in electrophysiology (heart rhythms). At the end of the day, we have one more amorphous cardiac thing to worry about, but no real answers of what to do or what to expect.

Thankfully, the increase in migraine med from meeting with the neurologist has helped and Izzy has only had a couple of episodes recently. And using benedryl with motrin during those epdisodes eases the pain in less than half an hour. So, some things are going well.