PVC's please help!

[derry2072]

I am a 35 year old white female of about 135lbs. I have had good cardiovascular conditioning through out my life with running and swimming. I currently swim with a swim team about 3 days per week and run 2-3 days per week. I swim about 2000 meters at a time and run about 3 miles when I run. I just did a two mile run in 16 min 30sec and I swim a 50 free in 34 seconds. So my conditioning is pretty good. I don't smoke, drink, or use any medications.

For a couple of years now I have been having PVC's. I went to a cardiologist and wore a 24 hour halter which just confirmed the PVC's. The doctor said I could take a beta blocker or continue on with out the medication. I thought that taking a beta blocker would not be a wise choice because my heart rate is already low - about 58 BPM and I know that their is a risk of worsening arrhythmias with the meds.

Oddly, I never experience any heart discomfort while I'm exercising. I only have noticeable problems while conducting day to day activity or sitting still. ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY! Please, if you know of some thing that I can do to stop the PVC's let me know. Today, they are really bad. I'm having a PVC about every other beat. Sometimes, I get scared and want to go to the ER but I never do and eventually the problem subsides. I fear that my problem may be getting worse though. What do I do about the PVC's and should I seek medical treatment?

[tom_h]

....I forgot one other thing.  DECAFFIENATE your body entirely, completely!  Doing that  made the single most significant improvement in my daily PVC tally.

[tom_h]

When I started taking beta blockers, it was the end of competitive athletics for me.  I was already well beyond the age of the elite competitors, and was grouped in with the rest of the old guys they nicely call "Masters".  I didn't experiment with different kinds of meds, sticking to Metoprolol from the very beginning.  It helped immensely, although I still get breakthroughs.  But it slowed me down to a point were I could no longer effectively compete even among my own age group.  It was my sport or my health, and I chose the latter.  I would say at your age of 35, you may be looking at the same circumstances as I.  Beta blockers don't lay you out, but they may slow you down.  Health first, I'd say.

[jyant]

My 2 cents is you now need to deal with this and understand they probably aren't going away anytime soon. Slowdown, make a serious life change, relax, take drugs if need be, give it a good year to see if the heart mends to a degree you can function again doing what you want.

Yeah, sometimes life deals us the short straw, learn to make the straw longer, then go to Disneyland.

And yes, seek medical help.

[Mom2four85]

here's a link from a post where a CC dr tells a patient about pvc's, meds & ablation, if you search in the top box you'll find other posts in the expert forum on pvc's ablation etc also =)
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Heart-Disease/Idiopathic-Ventricular-Tachycardia-Ablation/show/1327314

"The only thing worth assessing is the number of PVC's in a 24 hour period.  If it's greater than 15% of all the heart beats than there is a small risk of developing a PVC induced cardiomyopathy.  We typically don't ablate PVC's unless they are symptomatic or if they are very numerous (great than 15%)."

on a side note: I'm trying to find the post for you;  when our heart rates are slower pvc's happen more often and we tend to feel them alot more - I'll post it for you as soon as I find it.

[yarrow]

You are young and obviously fit.  Your heart has been checked out and found to be healthy, in that the doc noted PVCs and sent you home with the option of using a beta blocker to treat your symptoms or not.  This means you almost certainly have nothing bad going on.

As Lisa says, the number of PVCs per day is an important factor.  It's worth noting that the heart beats on average about 100,000 times per day.  In general, doctors don't even blink when a person has under ten thousand a day, and they don't consider treatment really necessary unless there are about twenty thousand.  This should give you comfort.  It also means there's no point in going to the ER, because there is nothing wrong with your heart, and really nothing they can do in the ER that will help.

The heart's Pacemaker (you can google this--and should, so you can understand what's going on with PVCs) generally controls the heart rate, but when the Pacemaker slows the rate, as it does when you're not exercising, there's more of an opportunity for twitchy, independent cells in the heart to fire on their own.  That's why you notice yours when you're not exercising.  Interestingly, because you are very fit, your heart rate is probably slower because your heart is more efficient at pumping.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned, the slow rate does provide a window for the rogue cells to kick off on their own.

What these independent little suckers do is certainly upsetting, but overall it's not a big deal, and not dangerous in either the short or long term.  The heart and circulatory system are enormously efficient and have ways to compensate for momentary glitches like these.

It's frustrating, but once you develop these irritable little heart cells, they are probably yours for the long haul.  It's very much like having an eyelid twitch; you know how those things come and go all your life if you're prone to them?  People like us have an eyelid twitch of the heart.  

Everyone--that's everybody--has occasional PVCs or other ectopic beats, but the odd thing is that only certain people feel them.  That would be many members of this forum, who I suspect are genetically somehow more sensitive to signals from inside our bodies.

So, in the absence of heart disease, your biggest problem (which I hear loud and clear, having experienced it myself), is anxiety about symptoms that are disturbing but not dangerous.  That is what you need to treat.  Your cardiologist, though undoubtedly a good person, is probably not the guy to go to for anxiety.  Based on my own experience, I would recommend you see a psychiatrist, because they are specialists in what's actually troubling you.  Shrinks, being MDs, can prescribe medications that will really help calm you and give you your life back.  Of course, if you are opposed to medication, you can also see a counselor who will teach you certain techniques that are designed to help with anxiety and panic.

Myself, I have not found the behavior modification exercises very helpful.  I favor the quick and dirty approach of a little Xanax to settle down the immediate fear, followed by long term treatment with one of the SSRI antidepressants.  Note:  It may take trials of several of meds in this class to find the right one for any individual.

[Mom2four85]

Did you get a copy of your test results? If not, request it from your dr(s) and check to see when it said they were, times etc and see if you can find any triggers.  

Also, if the dr didn't they may need to do blood tests to see if any of your levels are off and then can recommend supplements like magnesium, potassium etc

Did they say how many per 24 hours you were getting? That's an important thing as well as where they originate and make sure you note any changes in number of pvc's or symptoms etc - I keep a small notebook so when I notice something I jot it down.

For some, bb's work well others like myself I've been through 4 or 5 over the past year after Ablation to find one that works for me - only Inderal works without major side effects, but it has a shorter duration time.

[Annabelle1961]

Firstly, please know that you are not alone!  Sometimes just knowing that helps.  Youv'e been checked by a doctor and all is ok, just annoying.  You can try a little magnesium, 500mg a day sometimes helps.  Stay away from the triggers, i.e., alcohol, stress, chocolate, caffeine, etc.  Try not to worry (I know that's easier said than done), but from experience I can tell you the more you focus on it, the worse it will be!