Cardiac ablation treatment for symptomatic heart rhythm abnormalities

Dear Ask The Doctor: Hello, I am 17 years old and recently diagnosed with POTS and another type of Tachycardia, ive had problems for up to a year and they put me on atenolol. I had tried several different types of medication and each had some bad side affects. The cardiologist told me that if had the surgery to fix it i would end up with a pacemaker, is this true? and also my heart tends to skip beats in a row now, it takes my breath away and is quite scary. is there anything i can do about this? thank you :)

Dear Samantha: I assume that the surgery you are referring to is a cardiac ablation. Although this is not the treatment for POTS this treatment may be for the other type of tachycardia which you describe. There is a risk of heart block requiring a pacemaker after an ablation. The actual risk varies and depends on the type of tachycardia which you have. I think it would be worth discussing this with a cardiac electrophysiologist (an expert in heart rhythm abnormalities). With reference to the skipping beats, this may be related either to the other tachycardia which you describe (can occur at the start or end of the tachycardia) or may be related to the beta blocker.