Aa
bad days wearing me down
Greetings all. I havent been posting in the past few months. My card told me to stop coming here because he thought this was keeping my anxiety fired up and in turn was keeping my heart fired up. So i obeyed. I have been doing good for several months but this past week has been the worst. The flutters are keeping me up at night. I could just sit and cry from the frustration.
Im reading that even though it feels like my heart is skipping beats when i feel my pulse that i am actually not skipping beats. What? Sure feels like it. And its happening so much these past few days. I havent kept count but i will guess that im having flutters and the skipped beat in my pulse about 30 times a minutr sometimes. I have never had it this much before. Wondering if i should call my doc? or is that useless. Usually seems useless.
Im reading that even though it feels like my heart is skipping beats when i feel my pulse that i am actually not skipping beats. What? Sure feels like it. And its happening so much these past few days. I havent kept count but i will guess that im having flutters and the skipped beat in my pulse about 30 times a minutr sometimes. I have never had it this much before. Wondering if i should call my doc? or is that useless. Usually seems useless.
Yes good words. Thank you. I think you may be right about anxiety. I recently experienced some situations that really tested my nerves for days. Maybe i need to figure out a way to recover from that. It seems like when i come to terms with one symptom then a new one appears. This new one now, i will say is like a quiver followed by a pause then back to normal. Its new and strange but as u said, all of my test have been normal so i will start tomorrow working with my anxiety. Thanks for getting me back on track.
itdood gives good, sensible advice. As he says, if the heart is OK--and yours has been checked out enough to feel confident about this--we PVC sufferers at some point have to believe the medical evidence in spite of our terror about the weird but medically unimportant thumps in our chests.
So, if fear is nagging at you, fix that problem. Believe me, a lot of us have found that therapy, usually with some medications, will give you your life back.
So, if fear is nagging at you, fix that problem. Believe me, a lot of us have found that therapy, usually with some medications, will give you your life back.
For benign PVCs, structurally normal heart, I found my cardiologist couldn't help at all. They thought it was anxiety too. I refused to believe them, I told them I was anxious because my heart was a mess. They insisted it was the other way around. I tried all the meds they could come up with. Beta blockers and calcium channel blockers made them worse for me. I was getting about 6,000 pvc's per day at the worst. My worst episodes were at night and I was averaging about 2.5 hours of sleep per night.
So after about 8 months of those fun and games I gave up on trying to fix my heart and focused on something I could maybe try to control... the anxiety. I went on an SNRI that has helped me in the past with anxiety. I also started to do meditation and kept exercising even though I was pretty sure I would die. Something that oddly helped me was Maalox plus. I think it might have been the magnesium. I was taking magnesium glycinate too. I stopped all caffeine and alcohol. I ate a very low carb diet. I lost 20 pounds, had abs again :-)! From what I remember things started to settle down at about the 8th or 9th month of this debacle. I still get them in cycles. I'll go a few weeks without noticing any and then I'll go 2 or 3 days with isolated PVCs here in there.
If anxiety is the root cause, well then treat the root cause. Stop trying to fix your heart, and fix your anxiety.
So after about 8 months of those fun and games I gave up on trying to fix my heart and focused on something I could maybe try to control... the anxiety. I went on an SNRI that has helped me in the past with anxiety. I also started to do meditation and kept exercising even though I was pretty sure I would die. Something that oddly helped me was Maalox plus. I think it might have been the magnesium. I was taking magnesium glycinate too. I stopped all caffeine and alcohol. I ate a very low carb diet. I lost 20 pounds, had abs again :-)! From what I remember things started to settle down at about the 8th or 9th month of this debacle. I still get them in cycles. I'll go a few weeks without noticing any and then I'll go 2 or 3 days with isolated PVCs here in there.
If anxiety is the root cause, well then treat the root cause. Stop trying to fix your heart, and fix your anxiety.
The part of the skipped beat most of us associate with PVCs is actually what they call a Compensatory Pause. We don't feel the premature beat in these cases, we feel the pause that occurs after it. The Compensated PVC, from the last normal beat, through the non-productive premature beat, and to the next normal beat (for isolated PVCs, i.e. not occurring in couplets or runs) is two normal beats in length. So, you have a normal beat, premature beat, pause, and normal beat. During this compensatory pause, your heart fills with more blood than usual, and when the next normal beat occurs, we feel the thud.
Most of the effects we feel are due to the pause. There are Interpolated PVCs as well, these don't cause the pause, they would be more subtle in your pulse. Also, Premature Atrial Contractions may not be as pronounced. Look at the following web site, they detail the EKG appearance of various rhythm disturbances.
http://www.equimedcorp.com/rhythms/topic/40/
Regardless of your doctor's opinion, if you are concerned, call him/her or visit the Emergency Room if you feel these are excessive.
Most of the effects we feel are due to the pause. There are Interpolated PVCs as well, these don't cause the pause, they would be more subtle in your pulse. Also, Premature Atrial Contractions may not be as pronounced. Look at the following web site, they detail the EKG appearance of various rhythm disturbances.
http://www.equimedcorp.com/rhythms/topic/40/
Regardless of your doctor's opinion, if you are concerned, call him/her or visit the Emergency Room if you feel these are excessive.
Hi Michelle
30 a minute for the past 24 hours for sure.
My reflux has been bad lately. We went on vaca last week and i got off schedule with my reflux meds. Last night we ate out and my food was pretty acidic...tomatoes, jalapenos, onion, that type of stuff. However this fluttering skipping beats started last friday. It had just increased until today it is nearly constant. I took off work today because it kept me up all night and im just freaking out so decided to stay home today.
Thank you for your well wishes
30 a minute for the past 24 hours for sure.
My reflux has been bad lately. We went on vaca last week and i got off schedule with my reflux meds. Last night we ate out and my food was pretty acidic...tomatoes, jalapenos, onion, that type of stuff. However this fluttering skipping beats started last friday. It had just increased until today it is nearly constant. I took off work today because it kept me up all night and im just freaking out so decided to stay home today.
Thank you for your well wishes
I am sorry to hear you aren't feeling well. 30 a minute for how long? I would contact the doctor just to be sure. How is your stomach? Are you having any acid reflux lately? I wish I had a sure fire cure for you but only send you my well wishes that you feel better soon. (((HUGS)))
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During a PVCs your ventricles went off on their own and beat out of order. This over rode the SA node pace that came a little after the PVC. So the time between the pulese you feel will have a bit of a gap. But the part of your heart that normally paces it did not stop working.
Think of it this way...Your heart usually has one drummer telling the muscle when to contract. Lets call him Andy, he's located at the top of the heart. During a PVC, there are two drummers. Andy kept his normal pace, right on time with metronome-like precision. But then Bill came along. Bill is a jerk. He's located in the more muscular part of the heart, the ventricle. Bill decided to drum whenever he felt like it. Bill's drum is much bigger than Andy's so that's all you hear when he plays. Bill's drum drowned out Andy's. But good-guy Andy is still there, keeping the beat.