PVC's and sport

Hello,

Since august I have very frequent PVC's. Already had an Holter, it showed frequent uniform PVC's, maximim 231 an hour, mainly at daytime, and bigeminy. I hardly had any symptoms during the Holter, and have the feeling I have a lot more pvc's now. When I feel my pulse I hardly ever feel more than 8 normal beats, and when I'm in bed I have a lot of bigeminy and trigeminy. In fact wehn i wake up the fisrt thing i feel is my heart skipping a lot.I have an appointment with a cardiologist, because my GP dis prescribe bisobloc (betablocker) that makes the pvc's feeling worse. I have a normal pulse of 60 or lower at rest, and normal BP. Betablockers make me feel like I'm drunk, which I dislike.  have a hard time sleeping, am bothered by this. My GP mentioned the use of sotalol, but I know it can make things even worse. They don't do ablations for pvc's in Holland, so I'm kinda stuck. I'm going to insist on a echo and a stress test.
I had attacks op pvc's before, but then it was only a fwe skips. The last 5 years I didn't have any, now I have them 24/7.
I have a few questions:
1. The pvc's feel different. Soemtiems I feel the skip/pause between beats, but other times i have a full extra beat very short after a normal beat. Is this also a pvc ? Is this possible, coming from one focus ?
2. What about sport ? I wanted to become an outdoorinstructor, and like sports like snowboarding, spinning etc, but I am very afraid now to exercise. What's the risk of getting Vtach or cardiac arrest when I exercise with pvc's ?
Thnks, Jester

[Cleveland Clinic]

Jester,

Thanks for the post.

1. The pvc's feel different. Soemtiems I feel the skip/pause between beats, but other times i have a full extra beat very short after a normal beat. Is this also a pvc ? Is this possible, coming from one focus ?

Its impossible to tell without looking at the holter. PVCs and PACs both generally should feel like an extra beat.  Im sure some people can distinguish between the 2.

2. What about sport ? I wanted to become an outdoorinstructor, and like sports like snowboarding, spinning etc, but I am very afraid now to exercise. What's the risk of getting Vtach or cardiac arrest when I exercise with pvc's ?


With a normal cardiac evaluation, your risk of malignant arrythmia is the same as the general population and should be the least of your concerns.  I know thats difficult to do when you're the one with the symptoms.  Some people have more frequent PVCs at slower heart rates while others have them at faster heart rates.  You might actually have less symptoms while exercising and this might be why the beta blocker caused an increase in the extra beats.  

Either way, I would try stress reduction and other coping mechanisms well ahead of pursuing an ablation which is often costly and of questionable efficacy.


good luck

[Jester74]

Sorry, I forgot some details: I'm 30 years old, female and healthy (I guessed).
(Sorry about this)

[Barbarella]

Its good you are going to see a Cardiologist as I did.  I too had PVC's 24/7 for a very long time.  Beta blockers were horrible, I got real fatigue.  My resting pulse always has been 60 bpm for the last 30 yrs, I exercise every day, but on the Beta blockers my pulse went down to 34 bpm, I could hardly function and he put me on the lowest dosage.  If you read my posts about PVC's on this site I explained everything.  I too get them at times during exercise.  Had ALL kind of tests was told by the Cardiologist to "ignore" them.  To get enough rest for fatigue will bring them out.  To much alcohol will, smoking will and to much caffeine.  Most of all he told me that I will NOT drop dead from PVC's.  But your heart needs to get checked out first by a Cardiologist to rule out everything else.  Also, have you seen a doctor for maybe Thyroid problems? Or low blood sugar problems?  That can also cause PVC's/

Good luck to you.

[sniggitydiggity]

I have these EXACT feelings, too. I'm only 28 years old. I'm about 100lbs overweight and as a matter of fact, I went to the ER for them tonight and they actually caught one while they were doing the EKG. And if you've had an EKG, you know how fast they are. Well, they saw that it was a PAC. I was told there were no other electrical things going wrong in my body and so they sent me packing. I was cleared.

I've been getting these things for about 4 years now and for some reason they were REALLY bad today, so I started to worry. I was told to go home, relax and stop drinking caffiene and all that other good stuff they tell you to do when they know you're not gonna do it. :^)

These things are the scarest things I've ever dealt with and for the first year or so, I thought I was going to die everytime one hit me. I used to walk around with the phone in my pocket just in case I had one too bad to where I couldn't ge to it. (I just had one typing that, it took my breath). I still think that from time to time, but then I remember that they haven't killed me in 4 years so far, so they proably won't kill me now.

I still think something is wrong with me, it's not normal for your heart to flop around in your chest like it does, I don't care what these doctors say. I think they just don't know what it is and tell everyone they're benign because these PVCs haven't killed anyone yet, or at least it hasn't been documented as a cause of death or heart failure. God knows, sometimes it feels like I'm going to go into heart failure at any moment because my heart "stops" for so long from these PACs.

Anyways, good luck and I hope they go away for you, they've haven't for me, so I just have to deal with it. It's 6 am and I've had about 20 just typing this up.

[beckviv]

Barbarella, I have read many of your posts and this is the only place that had room to post. I was wondering were you the one wo got cardiomiopathy?? If not do you know why some people would get that from PVC's. I have had them for about 4 years and I just had an ekg  and an echo. Both were normal. Do I need more tests?? I am so afraid taht this will turn lethal some day. If anyone reads this please feel free to E-mail me, if they know more than me.
Becky.***@****

Thank you