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Complications
By Mayo Clinic staffWhen your heart's natural pacemaker isn't working properly, your heart can't perform as efficiently as it should. This can lead to a very slow heart rate, which may cause fainting. In rare cases, long periods of slow heart rate or fast heart rate can keep your heart from pumping enough blood to meet your body's needs — a condition called heart failure.
If you have bradycardia-tachycardia syndrome, you may also be at a higher risk of developing a blood clot in your heart that may lead to a stroke. That's because the fast heart rhythm that occurs in bradycardia-tachycardia syndrome is often atrial fibrillation — a chaotic rhythm of the upper chambers of the heart that can promote blood pooling in the heart. Blood clots are more likely to form when blood flow through the heart is altered in any way. A blood clot can break loose and travel to the brain, causing a stroke.
- Sick sinus syndrome. Heart Rhythm Society. http://www.hrspatients.org/patients/heart_disorders/sick_sinus/default.asp. Accessed March 19, 2009.
- Ferri F. Sick sinus syndrome. In: Ferri FF. Ferri's Clinical Advisor 2009. St. Louis, Mo.: Mosby; 2008. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/127077711-3/819048192/1701/546.html#4-u1.0-B978-0-323-04134-8..50022-7--cesec438_11555. Accessed March 19, 2009.
- Bradyarrhythmias. In: Libby P, et al, eds. Braunwald's Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=aboutPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-4106-1..X5001-8--TOP&isbn=978-1-4160-4106-1&uniq=127077711#lpState=open&lpTab=contentsTab&content=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-4106-1..50038-8--cesec163%3Bfrom%3Dindex%3Btype%3DbookPage%3Bisbn%3D978-1-4160-4106-1. Accessed March 12, 2009.
- Arnsdorf MF. Manifestations and causes of the sick sinus syndrome. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 19, 2009.
- Dual-chamber pacemakers for symptomatic bradycardia due to sick sinus syndrome and/or atrioventricular block. Rockville, Md.: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. http://www.guideline.gov/summary/summary.aspx?ss=15&doc_id=8124&nbr=4526. Accessed March 19, 2009.
- What is a pacemaker? National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/pace/pace_all.html. Accessed March 19, 2009.
- Arnsdorf MF. Treatment of the sick sinus syndrome. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 19, 2009.
