Diabetes: Irregular heartbeat

If you were offered ablation you may have WPW unless they are now using it for other problems of which I am unaware.

My daughter had an ablation, but it only resolved part of the problem. I think there is as much art as science to this problem because tracking all the various electrical paths of a WPW heart seems to be a blend of medicine, voodoo, faith healing and crystal ball reading with some tarot and high tech thrown in for good measure. My daughter is much improved, but still has problems if she gets stressed, dehydrated, etc. From my experience with her, hydration is critical at all times. Also, sometimes she is low on potassium and needs supplementation which they usually find out when she is sick with something else and ends up in the hospital ER.

I have a friend with WPW; her ablation was done years ago and was so extensive she now has congestive heart failure and needs a transplant. The transplant can't happen until she loses a huge amount of weight (she's diabetic and malignantly obese). In her case, the obesity is probably caused by the drugs to control her heart problems. However, she's still alive - her brother dropped dead of WPW when he was just a young man. She is hoping to get well enough to get a gastric bypass to lose the weight so that she can have the transplant. I knew one person in my "group" who was getting a bypass so she could get a transplant. Amazing what we can do with surgery these days.

The problem with WPW, as I understand it, is that it develops when the fetal heart (which has more than one electrical pathway) does not mature into a normal infant heart. In WPW sufferers there may be many pathways. The heart can start beating in different rhythms and can end up not pumping blood - just fluttering away at a very high speed - aka tachycardia.

There is no pacemaker for WPW to the best of my knowledge, however my friend travels with a defibrillator as her husband has to shock her on a regular basis to keep her from dying. Her case is very severe and probably complicated by the malignant obesity and severe diabetes. If you'd rather do the heart shocking routine then family members could be trained to shock your heart if/as needed. If you are overweight then getting weight off, swimming regularly (recommended by my friend) and keeping hydrated and adequately balanced for potassium and other heart important chemicals seems to help a great deal - at least that is my observation as an outsider looking in and listening to those dealing with the issue.

And that's about all I know about the problem since I don't have it myself. Hope what little information I have is helpful in some small way.