Wolff Parkinson White (WPW) anyone else have it?

Yeah, I have it. I discovered my condition when in college over 15 years ago. It was found when I was about to take a V02 Max stress test during Exercise Phys Lab. I can't explain all the details of what it is exactly except to say that it has to do with the electrical currents of the heart that aren't travelling as they are supposed to through one of the walls of the heart. For me that resulted in short bouts of tachacardia (SP?) at times. I've found that for me, these usually only happen when I'm out of shape and working back into training. If I'm consistently fairly fit, I've had little signs of even having it. My doc said I could probably get along fine with it if I wasn't experiencing the irregular heartbeats, but he suggested I work towards having it fixed eventually. I've still not had anything done surgically to correct the condition because I'm not fond of surgery (ironically I'm going in for a different type of surgery tomorrow) but I will probably have it corrected someday.

I'd definitely recommend seeing a good cardiologist as I'm sure every case can be different. One of the strange things that we found in studying my case, was that my EKG turns perfect when my heartbeat was above about 120bpm, but as I slowed the treadmill down and started cooling down, and my heartbeat lowered, the EKG went back to it's normal irregular pattern. In the years since my diagnosis I've run over 20 marathons and haven't had any real problems as a result, but again I'd recommend talking to a good cardio doc because I'm sure each case can be different.

Normally your heart conducts electrical impulses down a specific bundle of tissue. People with WPW have an extra region of conduction. This creates the potential for a "circuit of conduction". In this situation, your heart will conduct down the normal pathway but instead of the process stopping there until the next beat, the electrical impulse can conduct backwards up the extra tissue and cause a continuous circuit of circular conduction resulting in a fast heart rate. This fast heart rate is ussually uncomfortable but relatively well tolerated so long as it doesn't last to long. A small subset of people have the potential for the circuit to conduct in the opposite direction (ie down the extra tissue). If this were to happen then you could be at greater risk but this is extremely rare. Since you have never had palpitations, you have probably never had any abnormal conduction but the presence of WPW on your EKG suggests that you have the potential. You should be fine to exercise normally. You have several medical options possibly including an elective procedure to interupt the pathway - which is nice option for people who experience undue anxiety following the diagnosis or for people with significant symptoms. Have you seen a cardiologist to discuss medical options?

the appointment with the cardiologist is next thursday, i was advised not to run till then, and not until he tells me its okay, but i just cant see myself taking a week off like that especially in a very important portion of my training. thanks for both of your posts, they are very helpful.

Yes, I have had the surgery for this twice. Once as a junior in high school and once as a junior in college. The surgery is not difficult and for the second surgery I was allowed to be awake.

I suppose you could be diagnosed with WPW and have never experienced the real symptoms. Shortness of breath is the last symptom you will notice. The first thing you will notice is extremely fast heartbeat for an indefinite amount of time. I am talking about clocking your heart rate over 220 beats while sitting in a class lecture. I had this numerous times as a youth and just lived with it. Junior year in high school the HR kicked into overdrive during a basketball game (it had happened many times in hockey or practices before). Someone got a hold of my pulse at halftime and then I was side-lined until a number of doctors and surgery.

There was a 5% chance of WPW coming back after surgery and eventually it did. This time it came back after cross season in college and during pre-season conditioning for track. It started to happen so frequently that I had 8 cases in a week during track training (2 in one day). That was enough to get the surgery again.

Now (8-9 years later) the problem is only rarely for a few seconds and goes away. Nothing that affects life.

The bright side is the surgery. In 1990, I believe it was still open heart. Now, it's outpatient...and you are allowed to run the next day. In theory, you could not miss a day of running with a morning run, surgery and a late run the next day.

I ran a mile PR 4 days after the surgery. A hill workout the following day, though the coach was very concerned.

Let me know if you have any questions on it.

Drew Ludtke

And truthfully its not even a surgical procedure - there's no scalpel involved. Its a catheter procedure and they use a vein in your leg to pass a catheter into the heart. You're awake but mildly sedated for the whole thing. However, you may not even be a candidate for this since you've never even had palpitations. Its a fairly controversial topic at the moment and would probably be at the discression of your cardiologist. He/she will need to take a complete history and maybe run some easy tests to determine your risk. Since you've likely had this for years or possibly even your whole life, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me that you take the week off running and compromise all the training. As you can see there's a wide range of presentations for people with WPW. Some people walk around their whole lives with it and never even get diagnosed, others have relentless symptoms and there is a very small risk of sudden death...so its worth being evaluated.

Correction - they usually use the veins in your neck rather than your leg - most other catheterization procedures use your leg vessels but for an electrophysiology study they use your neck/arm in most cases because its easier to direct the catheter.

Neck & Leg insertions are probably necessary...unless things have changed in the last few years.

The two procedures I had required a camera insertion and a laser. One went in the neck and one in the femoral artery. I have two little dots on the neck(not noticable) and a small scar on the femoral artery (not noticable).

okay i will clarify, i have had faster than normal heartbeats that cause a tad of chest pain, but its always been during fast interval work, so i never really thought anything of it, other than maybe overtraining. i have certainly never had any issues of 220bpm range while sitting in class, when i got my ekg my bpm was 61 so fairly normal for resting athlete.

i had it. they detected it in my ekg when i got my physical for xc. i hadnt had any symptoms. i failed my physical, so i went to my chiropractor and got passed, and ran xc fine. i had a bad season but i dont attribute it to this. last friday i went in for the procedure. they shaved me down low and took a catheter through both my groins and up to my heart. they did what they needed to do. my groins were/are a little sore, but nothing major. i have to take two weeks off. i spent a total of 12 hours at the hospital. but that could change depending on who does your surgery. its really not a big surgery or anything. i would suggest getting done, but at a convenient time for you to take a couple weeks off.

The hallmark of WPW with tachycardia is a very abrupt onset and termination. If you are working out, your HR will typically gradually increase over a period of minutes - with WPW your HR will go from normal to very fast (often >200) in a single beat. The termination is the same - a sudden change from 200 to normal.

I can confirm this. One time when returning from a short 4-5 mile run as I was getting back into training I could feel my HR racing. After a minute or two of hanging out w/ the guys in front of our apt after the run I told some of the guys how fast my HR was moving. They didn't believe me, so I went into the apartment, grabbed my HR monitor and strapped it on. I walked back out to show the guys, It was at about 205 and stayed there for another 3-4 minutes before dropping to 100, then slowly back to a more natural resting rate. Pretty crazy.

thanks again, my question is what advice was given to you on training for this, i.e. mileage and intensity, allowed to race or not, and what if any affect did it have on your racing etc.

Keep training unless the tachycardia (rapid heart rate) kicks in. The training advice I was given was to take the rest of the day off. Others were apparently told two weeks. It will probably depend on the type of procedure & your doctor's orders.

It is true that the tachycardia sets on very rapidly and ends very rapidly (could take minutes to hours). If you are not experiencing this problem, I wouldn't seek the procedure. If you are not experiencing this problem and told to have the procedure, I would question this and seek other professional opinions.