Hi Lisa, I think that's the best way to think about it. ANS can play a role but I think of it as more of a secondary thing. I feel this is the reason Docs look at people like they have 2 heads when they swear there's something vagus related going on. I was one of them. I know for sure there wasn't something random going on. I had positional PVCs, certain time of day... I certainly think there's some correlation to vagus activation and PVCs but what it all boils down to is that ventricular pacers are firing when they aren't supposed to.
Hi Irene, thanks for the comments :-)
Thanks for your insight into PVC's in transplant patients. It's so encouraging to hear that your dad is doing so well! I'm a 50 year old male that received a heart transplant earlier this year after fighting a 3.5 year battle with cardiac sarcoidosis (rare). I'm 11 months post transplant. Learned all about the vegus nerve being severed with I tried to run post transplant. Boy, I have to give my heart a long time to warm up but can manage 5 K's at a 13 mi per minute pace. Recently, I've felt my first PVC's without any other cardiac symptoms at all. Your note is quite helpful. Do you think onset of PVC's could be related to my heart renervating? I always run 100+ beats per minute during the day, but its settling down in the 80s when I sleep now.
Absolutely interesting bits of information. Thank you for doing the research on this and explaining it so well. Again, I see why cardio docs are so reluctant to treat PVC's as a rule. Ablation is tricky and difficult with poor success rates and meds just cover up the problem. I just live with mine (hiccup, hiccup)
wow great info, so am I reading this correctly - the ANS/vagus nerve may not play as an important role as it seems to? meaning it's the secondary cause and the heart is primary?
p.s., I wanted to add that when you peel back all the layers of the PVC onion, at its core are excitable ventricular pacers. Treating the root cause is critical. All we are left with is trying to treat secondary factors, to dull those with meds, and it never really gets to the root of the problem.
The only way I know of to deal with excitable ventricular pacers is to kill them, ablation. Ablation for benign PVCs is a very complex and delicate issue, save that for another disucssion.
A blanket medication would dull all the pacers and possibly dull all the heart's backup pacers. I think this is why doctors have found that treating with class III antiarrhythmics can actually be detrimental to benign PVC sufferers.