Why PVC's?

  Why is it that I get tons of PVC's when I get extremely nervous or anxious? As soon as I enter a situation that causes me to become nervous I start to get pvc's one right after the other. They drive me nuts. I have gotten better over this year but sometimes I still avoid certain situations. I have a viewing tonight and I am impending getting them. The last viewing I went to I had them so bad I had to turn around before I made it in the front door. Should I continue to do my thing even if they are one on top of the other. I do plan to take 1/2 Xanax. This helps alittle bit. I am so afraid that one right after the other will turn into v-tach or something worse. What are your thoughts. I am 35 and have under gone echo and ekgs. I have MVP with mild reguritation and ekg is normal except for t-wave abnormalitiy. How come sometimes my ekg says that I have a prolong QT wave. Does this come and go. My cardiologist does not seemed to concerned. I worked as an EKG tech and had many test ekgs while training. Thanks for all your help.
  Roxanne

[CCF Cardio MD - MTR]

_

Dear Roxanne, thank you for your question.  Stress causes a surge of hormones within the body (adrenaline, etc.) which can stimulate PVC's.  Patients with MVP frequently have PVC's that are certainly not life threatening and the risk of developing sustained ventricular tachycardia is almost nonexistent.  A prolonged QT interval on your ECG is nothing to worry about if your cardiologist has reviewed your ECG.  Sometimes this is found on ECG's and can only present a problem is the interval is very prolonged. Avoiding caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol can reduce the incidence of PVC's while beta blockers are a class of medications that may help you.  Beta blockers suppress the number of PVC's that occur and may work if you take them before situations that you know will be stressful.  I think beta blockers would be better than xanax for such situations, so I suggest that you speak with your physician about this.  Finally, I've attached a response to a previous question about PVC's in the heart forum from a patient that suffers from PVC's - I hope you find this helpful.
Information provided in the heart forum is for general purposes only.  Only your physician can provide specific diagnoses and therapies.  Please feel free to write back with additional questions.

"Hi there - I read your letter written in to the docs at the heart forum.  First of all - you can feel assured - there are plenty of us out there that get the same thing and all of think its scary!  I had a hard time accepting that I will have these strange poundings and beats at unexpected times, but after much thought and a good talk with a cardiologist, I have decided that life is too short to sit around and worry.  As long as people know you have this problem and a doc has told you its nothing more than PVC's, try to relax.  I try to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing - coming home from work I went through this whole sequence of "what if" questions.  Like what's the worse thing that could happen- a heart attack.  And if I have one, what's the worse will happen - I will die.  Well, I am going to go sometime, so it could be a book falling off a shelf at work and hitting me in the head before I ever have a heart attack.  So please try to relax about it, because stress makes them worse too, that I learned pretty fast.  I don't drink or eat anything with caffeine, stay away from alcohol, try to de-stress my life when possible and when I get a bad bunch of PVC's, I try to do something to keep my mind off of them.  It's hard when they occur at night, but I just get up and do and watch television or something like that.  I get more at night. I feel bad for you having the panic problem, I went through that too and had just decided that after a year on medication, I needed to get the control of my life in my own hands if possible, not medication.  So I did a lot of reading on panic attacks, etc.  Now I just talk myself out of them as best as I can and just ride the ones I get.  Life is so hectic, its hard to avoid things that cause us to get all worked up. Hang in there - we are all in the same boat.  My advice to you is to see a cardiologist that can put your mind at ease and help you to understand that you won't die from PVC's, just get a little uncomfortable once in awhile. Sherry"