We Interrupt this Blog (in much the same way as a Wenckenbach Heart Block)

I think all of you knew the recent development where my doctor has me wear a Halter Monitor for a day to try to get to the bottom of a long-standing arrhythmia I had in my heart. Long-standing, as for as long as I can recall (Sharon used to put her ear to my chest in the early days of our marriage and remark on my skippy, stoppy heart beat).

The results of me wearing the monitor were a little startling - detecting that I had a second-degree "heart block," meaning, simply, that the signal or impulse from my brain would simply not get through every so often. My heart simply misses a beat, generally after slowing down over a succession of beats. At one point, there was actually a 2.5 second interval between beats. Almost all of this goes on while I sleep.

The other oddity is that I have a curiously high resting heart rate. It's in the upper 80s or low 90s, which really makes no sense given my decent level of fitness and my (on the whole) low stress level. It was thought that the two could possibly be related. Add to that, this inordinate amount of sweating I do (more so in the last few years); beyond normal, truly. I think the sweat is related to how I cramp up so easy (I'm simply losing fluid that fast), and my thought (hope?) is that the sweat was/is somehow related to the heart rate.

So really, I was going into this with a lot of questions. Questions that need answers.


Well, I just came back from a specialist visit at a cardiology center, and I am cautiously quite optimistic. First off - within the spectrum of second degree heart block, there are two main types: type two, or type one (the Wenckebach). Type two, not so good: unpredictable, likely progressive, ending in (ultimately) cardiac arrest. Type one is a more or less benign condition. This is the one the cardiologist is convinced I have, given the fact that you always see this slowing up of the rhythm before the stoppage. He says there is no reason the condition would need to impact my exercise or lifestyle, and there is no health risk, currently.

The high resting heart rate is curious. He doesn't think it's related in a cause-effect way, but he thinks BOTH conditions may simply be as a result of sleep apnea. That is his belief, and my hope. We know I snore, and we know I'm always a little tired, which would both be symptoms of apnea. The doctor says that sleep apnea can also wreak havoc with your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and totally have all sorts of unexpected consequences on heart rate. My next step is to do a sleep assessment. But this is really good news, given the uncertainty of the last couple of weeks since the condition was diagnosed.

More on this as it develops, undoubtedly.