Does anxiety cause PVC'S or PAC'S?

[lgrass94]

Hi guys.

Am i right in thinking that anxiety and stress causes an increase in extra beats?

What specifically increases though?  Premature atrial contraction or PVC'S?

surely theyr both widely different in what they do to the heart rhythm, and where in the chambers they occur.  So how is it that anxiety causes one of them to increase and not the other?

[JosephCacciatore]

I suffered PACs and PVCs for about 3 years about a couple of years ago. I quit smoking and cut back on drinking and stop caffeine but I was still having any where between 5000 to 10000 episodes a day. All my electrolytes checked normal my heart was fine according to all the cardiologist tests. I started to take magnesium supplement and with in a few weeks they were completely gone. I took magnesium with calcium with a 2:1 calcium to magnesium ratio along with vitamin D. The amount that I took was 800 mg or calcium and 400 mg of magnesium citrate and 400 ius of vitiman D. This got rid of them and I still talk this supplement every day. I have few here and there maybe less then 10 episodes and most days none. Even if your blood results check normal for magnesium it doesn't mean it's not low. Because magnesium is mostly stored in the muscle and skeletal tissue and in the heart. Try it out I am telling you this worked for me and was about to go have an ablation done because I was so tired of having PACs and PVCs. If it works for you, please share this to other sufferers.

[lgrass94]

I see. Thanks for explaining.

When you say EPs are producing r on t , what do you mean? Like a stress test or something?

[philip341]

Anxiety will result in the release of adrenaline which will stimulate your heart and increase the PVCs/PACs as a result. I don't think there is a way to tell them apart just by feeling alone. It would be easy to say the light ones are PACs and the strong feeling ones are PVCs but it's more complicated than that.

[is_something_wrong]

PVCs can trigger ventricular arrhythmias if they occur too early in the heart rhythm cycle, IF you have some sort of structural heart disease forming extra pathways in the ventricles. What you mention about falling on a specific "wave" is known as R on T, meaning that the PVC occur before the heart is completely "recharged" from the previous beat.

When doctors are performing EP studies, they are deliberately producing R on T beats (they are pacing the ventricles with very short interval) to see if they can trigger an arrhythmia. Most often, as which is seen in healthy hearts, they don't trigger anything.

[lgrass94]

Oryt I see.

It's strange how some of them can be a split second thing that's as light as a hiccup and others cause a flutter lasting longer, must be as you say when and how the occur on the rhythm.

I understand in a setting with severe heart disease that they can be dangerous. I also came across somewhere that mentioned if they fall on or before a specific 'wave' then they can cause problems.

[is_something_wrong]

That's impossible to answer. Everyone have different sensations of their ectopic beats. And it's not like "a PAC feels like this and a PVC feels like that" - often the sensations can be variable, depending on the timing of the beat, pressure changes in the chest and heart, stroke volume and heart rate.

But usually, if you measure your pulse, a PAC is felt like a double beat or "weird" heart beat, and a PVC is usually more a "skipped" beat followed by a harder beat. The fluttering sensation is more commonly felt with PACs. But I've had PACs which felt like a pause and a hard beat. So it's really impossible to tell.

[lgrass94]

Ok I see, is there a way to tell the difference between them?
When I feel some, theyre light similar to a hiccup and don't take my breath. Some however at night ONLY, with low h.r, theyre big, about 2 or 3 seconds long, and are a FLUTTER which make me feel breathless a little. I really used to hate then but I embrace them now and quite like the sensation. Which would you say are PACs and which are PVCs

[is_something_wrong]

Am i right in thinking that anxiety and stress causes an increase in extra beats?

Yes.

What specifically increases though?  Premature atrial contraction or PVC'S?

Both, but probably PACs more than PVCs, especially in the setting of acute panic.

So how is it that anxiety causes one of them to increase and not the other?

Ectopic beats are often caused by irritable spots in the cardiac tissue. The atrial tissue is generally more irritable (it has higher automaticity) than the ventricular tissue (if the sinus node fails, it would be beneficial for the escape beats to occur "high up" in the heart). However, many (healthy) individuals have irritable ventricular tissue too. Adrenaline and noradrenaline increase automaticity (and for that reason, ectopic beats)