Does an increase in PVC's warrant a new cardiologist visit?

[mulder86]

Hello everyone.
In the past 6 years I've had my heart checked twice for structural problems,
and also had two 24h ECG studies.... the last time being a bit over 2 years ago.

Both checkups resulted in a structurally normal heart,
but with a very high amount of PVC's.

The document did not list an official percentage of PVC's to normal beats,
but I remember listening obsessively many times and came to a rough estimation that I had around 10 or 15% PVC's to normal beats on average.

I do not however, remember having many double PVC's at all.



Lately though I have noticed while laying in bed, that I feel a lot of double beats (bigeminy?)
My heart would beat 3 times in a PVC like fashion,
and then give me 7 normal beats, to return to around 3 skipped pvc's in a row.

I'm not sure if this is like this everyday, but I've noticed this pattern more than a couple of times.
This could basically suggest an increase of from around 15%'s to almost 50% though.

I'm still asymptomic basically, i dont get out of breath while doing exercise.
I'm not going to ask if I should "WORRY!!!" because, worrying is not going to help me.

But should I get yet another heart study, or do you think I should wait it out for few more years before I do that?
Thanks for your advice people.

[mulder86]

So i went to my doc,
and he said its good to visit cardio again and check it out.

He also said that cardiomyopathy from pvc's is not Always fully reversible after ablation... woops !

[mulder86]

Ok,
So as long as my hearts keeps being structurally normal and I have no other complaints, I guess i'm good.

I think cardiomyopathy is not really something to prevent in advance,
because if it happens due to too many PVC's (and theres no guarantee that it does?)

Then it reverses itself once the PVC's have been correctly ablated,
or is reversion of cardiomyopathy not guaranteed?

[Jenn1302]

Yes. You want to make sure it's not cause by some new underlaying problem. Also, as far as I know, even in the absence of structural heart disease, high percentages of PVC's to normal beats often require medication or an ablation, because high percentages (long term) can potentially cause complications. Another heart study can help your cardiologist determine whether you're close to this threshold and what needs to be done.

[itdood]

With that high of a PVC load, my opinion is that it would be wise to get an echo, EKG, and stress test once per year.