PVS's in a row

If anybody has any suggestions please let me know. I just had like 7 or more palpatations in a row after eating . I heard that if you have 7 in a row its not good. I feel fine rigth now .

As soon as I had them I got up and walked into the other room where another person was in case I pased out or something , but nothing bad happend. I had a little fast heart beat but thats it. I am seeing a docter today at 3:!0 to do an EKG and check me out. Has anybody ever had many in a row? I had like 7 and its scared the pants off of me. Thanks for any advise.

[sb786]

hi seang, i just logged on to calm myself down after getting about 5-6 pvcs in a row after eating! i was amazed to see your message! its not the first time this has happened to me and i've spoken to my cardiologist about it and he says not to worry. i have had all heart tests done which are normal apart from svt and pvcs. is this the first time you have noticed the pvcs?

[massage therapy]

i'm in the same boat, guys! i've had oooooodles of pvc's in a row. i've had all the tests done, and everything comes back normal. i do have avnrt, but the pvc's, although really scary and upsetting, are usually harmless.
i know it's hard to believe something that feels so very WRONG to your body can be harmless, but i'm slowly trying to accept it and not freak when they happen.
hang in there! you're not alone!

[anacyde]

Allow me to join the bandwagon!  I also get palpitations after eating, usually PACs for me.  It's unsettling.  I notice that smaller, more frequent meals (which seem to be the cure for everything else, lol) helps keep the palpitations at bay.

[CollegeGirl143]

ide give my left foot to know where that rumor got started, as it runs rampant on this board.. Ive heard so many times patients saying 6 palps in a row can kill you,which is not even CLOSE to being factual. Anyone have any idea's how that got started??

Alot of people get palps and tachycardia after they eat. I personally get horrible tachycardia after i eat, and when i had svt, ide get it after every single meal.

[fearfactor]

I know - you have to take info on the message boards with a grain of salt.  There is a lot of good info but you can really scare yourself, too.  I went thru a period of time when I was so terrified of palpitations I couldn't even live my life.  I went through an intensive health anxiety therapy and one of the conditions of my therapy was NO internet surfing re: palpitations.  It really did help to not think about them for a while!

[CollegeGirl143]

thats awesome fearfactor.

Keep in mind forums are generally not a place meant to gather information, just support. Asking question to people who are not medical professionals will never be better than the advice and guidance you've gotten from your own doctor.

[Barbarella]

Calm down.  A Cardiologist I saw got so mad and told me to stay away from message boards.  I had questions for him I read on this board i.e. "PVC's during exercise can be fatal, frequent PVC's in the row can be fatal" etc etc.  

I think message boards are good to share your experiences with each other but to make statements like the above is very cruel and irresponsible.  If people cannot trust what their doctors/cardiologists tell them, fine, but don't come on message boards and scare the hell out of people when you're not even an M.D. just because you read "some stuff" on the Internet.

The Cardiologist told me what your mind is capable of.  When I get PVC's in the row like every other beat I used to get so worked up that they stayed with me for days up to two weeks.  I still don't like them but when I get them I remember what the Cardiologist told me.  THEY WILL NOT KILL YOU, no matter when and why you get them.

Of course you have to have heart disease ruled out and other causes i.e. Low Potassium, low blood sugar they can also cause PVC's, but most of the time there is no cause but stress and fatigue.

I too at times get them after eating, when I still worried about them more I used to think about them while I was eating and sure enough after the meal I had a full blown PVC attack with every other beat skipping.

If 6-7 PVC's per minute could kill you I'd have died 45 yrs ago and since then from PVC's every other beat, do the math and figure out how many per minute, its sure more than 6-7 per minute.

Trust what your doctor/cardiologist told you.  He/she studied the heart for years.  He/she will not take a chance of a malpractice suit and have his/her reputation shot because he/she was keeping "fatal information" from you.

And last but not least none of the Cardiologist who answer questions on the "heart" forum board have ever suggested or told people that PVC's could be fatal.

[ipso]

I've just found this forum and this is my first here.  I'm writing this just to tell all of you who have posted already what a comfort your comments have been to me.  I just started having palpitations two weeks ago and am waiting for a follow-up visit with my cardiologist (had a 24-hour holter monitor) who has told me they are probably totally benign (I didn't happen to have any symptoms while I was at his office).  But I have had anxiety attacks for years, and now pretty much all I can think about is, "am I having pvcs now?  How about now?" and I'm SURE that's making them worse!  It's really good to hear from so many people that they have lived with this for years and confirming that they really are generally harmless.  I've been on the verge of tears a couple of times in the last two weeks because of this.  So thanks again!

ps on the topic of not trusting what you read on the web, part of my anxiety was due to reading very scary stuff on a supposedly very reliable medical website.

[LadyNRA]

Thanks for you post.  It was encouragin to hear that someone such as yourself had PVCs for such a long time without adverse effects.  I am on a holter monitor as we speak (literally) which will end the 24 hour monitoring in about 40 minutes.  In all honesty, I haven't been freaking out over this even though I get between 3 - 7 a minute every minute every day for the last 9 weeks.  The cardiologist says this may provide no answers that they didn't have already (that it was all benign ectopy with no obvious causes) but it will at least give them a count of how many I actually get in a day. Mostly this is to give me some 'facts' to alleviate some of the anxiety I feel about exercising.  And to have a baseline if the # of ectopic beats changes in the future.  

And yes, like others on this thread, I definitely get more palps after eating, stronger too.  I told this to the RN yesterday before they hooked me up to the monitor.

[Barbarella]

I used to have PVC's so bad that I had to leave the store and run to my car afraid I'd drop dead.  I had them at night, they woke me up from my sleep, after a meal, while exercising.  The more I worried the longer they stayed and the stronger they came until a Cardiologist explained to me what my brain and anxiety is doing to me and the PVC's.

Mine are nerves/anxiety related.  I still get them, but not as strong since I know that they cannot kill me.

Also, I get them while walking in very cold weather, and an ice cold strong wind brings them on big time.  Walking against a strong wind.  Again, on some website I read that PVC's in cold weather show hard disease NOT TRUE!  The Cardiologist told me to stay away from message boards and this was NOT true in a healthy heart.  You all get/got your hearts checked if your doctors/cardios tell you they are BENIGN trust him/her or you will make your life a living hell with the fear and anxiety about these PVC's.  Believe me I have been there and I would not wish this on my biggest enemy.

[LadyNRA]

I know what you are saying, I just wish I could figure out what stressor is causing these if stress is truly the issue.  They are all day long for me.  From the minute my alarm blares until I finally start to head into sleep (fortunately I sleep well and while I'm sure they are present, they are either less pounding or less often.  My cardiologist and the others cardio docs I saw in the ER are all reassuring me that these are benign.  They did a holter for this very reason just this week.  I await results.  I don't anticipate them finding anything odd since they are so SURE it's benign, and they are doing it just to find out how many I actually get, since I claimed between 3 to 4 thousand on an 'average' day, and to calm my concern about harder exercise, which I desperately need to do since I'm quite overweight and a true-blue couch potato once I get home from a stressfilled day at the office.  I sometimes wish I could get my insurance to cover some visits to a therapists just so I could figure out some sort of biofeedback or other calming methods, not to quiet fears but more to see if i can calm the degree of pounding.  I notice that if I am getting uptight at work, or am thinking too much about the PVCs like when I'm on this site, they feel stronger as soon as stop moving.  Oh well, this place has been a blessing to me, it has really reassured me right from the start and I'm grateful to each and everyone who takes the time to tell their stories and to help reassure or inform other folks.

[jtpost]

Mine will last sometimes 3-5 hours at a time and I am still living. I get very scared however when it happens. Mine seem  happen when I have a glass of wine or something spicy and then it usually happens about 4-5 hours after the wine or something spicy and then when I am lying down. If I stand up it goes away. When I lay back down it starts again for hours. It is bizzarre.

[dh51334]

When you get a bunch in a row may indicate stress so a good reliever of stress is SEX.  GO FOR IT!!!!!!!!!

[Runner292929]

I got a full workup in the ER when I first felt my pulse one evening before going to bed (as I always do). Usually somewhere around 55bpm or so (I run, Swim, Lift, play soccer etc.) Much to my surprise one evening, I felt like I would get regular beats, then a second beat quickly following a normal beat, then a pause then a slightly harder beat after the pause. It  sent me right to the ER. After a night's stay in the ER, 3 blood draws for workups on EVERYTHING (including enzymes for heart damage), two ECG's (which came back ABNORMAL-they said due to being an endurance athlete), echo, Chest x-rays, ultrasound, nuclear prior to and nuclear after a stress test (which I passed obviously-I had done a triathlon the day before!) They told me basically that my left ventrical was extra muscular due to endurance training and that I had what they called athletic heart. of All the tests they did, the only thing they found that was OFF was that my potassium was low. Now I eat a banana every day, wake up with a low sodium V8 (570ml potassium per little can) and slam another before I go to bed, and I haven't really had any PAC's PVC's or anything since! Maybe try this? Also-I have found out that I have 4 generations of skipped beats when potassium gets to low-apparently my genetics requires me to have higher potassium levels than most to stay off irregularities. Only frustration now with this knowledge is managing my nutrition without obsessing about my levels. Anyone else have a similar story, successes...?

[happy513]

I am so glad I came across this website. Mine started about 10 years ago when I was 20. I had  no idea what was going on - I went to 1 DR. he said I was allergic to something in my work and needed to find a new job. I did not think so - so I went to a new DR, she said  I had asthma (which made sense to me as I did not know it was my heart) and gave me a inhaler to use when the symptoms came about. That did not help - so I quit taking it. Finally a few months later I got a new primary and explained to her what I was feeling and she said PVC's right off the bat - the same day she gave me a EKG and I wore a monitor for 24 hours. She also prescribed me something, can't really remember what it was, but it kind of numbed the feeling so it wouldn't be so heavy when it happened. But it I really couldn't feel my heart beat with it either. So I quit taking it. I lost about 80 pounds over the next few months and the PVC's went away. However, I have gained 40 pounds this year and the PVC's are back, worse than ever. Not even daily - all day. Mine are mainly when I am moving around, every few seconds I get one - some back to back.  I do get them when I am still but few and far between. Mine are mostly when I am moving around, doing dishes, laundry, etc. They really freak me out - yes I know anxiety exacerbates them. But keeping that under control is something in itself. I am hopeing that eating healthier and getting this 40 pounds off, and no more smoking will help them disipate. I am going to be scheduling an appointment with a Cardiologist though. I am glad I found this site today. It is nice to see that I am not alone. Other than praying for Jesus to heal me and his comfort - I have felt alone. Like I can't explain exactly what I am feeling - but I know what I am feeling. Thank you all for letting me vent and thank you for your stories.