sudden onset?

[PAT65]

Hi! I have a question about PVCs. I am 37 years old and have had an occasional PVC(2or3 a month) for years. Last May I was in a hurry so I was eating and drinking a soft drink on the road. I suddenly started having frequent PVCs (bigeminy and Trigeminy) along with a lot of stomach pressure. I thought I was having a heart attack and went to ER. In short, I was given mylanta. One betapace, potassium and sent home. All my labs were OK. Troponin was normal. This happened again later with another trip to the ER. I then had some testing, Including a holter(I had over 7000 PVCs in 24hrs)EKGs, and stress treadmill were normal. Echo just showed mild mitral staightening, not prolapsed. Well, I have been dealing with this almost daily ever since. I have tried lopressor and atenolol as well as stuff like paxil and celexa. Needless to say, nothing works. Some days I think I might be getting a grip on it and other days I feel like the physicians must have missed something. Can you give me any idea as to the sudden onset? Any suggestion of anything that might help? I was told that one day I would wake up and they would just be gone ( although they would likely return) Well, 8 months later I am still waiting. Please help.

[heartbeat]

WMAC, I'm  on metoprolol.  My doctor put me on that beta blocker because my resting pulse was always a little on the high side and also to help for my palpitations.  I must say, since I'm on this pill my palpitations just last minutes und I also have a nice, low resting pulse now.  He started me on 50 mg per day, when I complained about extreme tiredness he told me to just take 25 mg (the pills only come in 50 mg and up so I have to cut the pills in half)  When you first start out with a beta blocker you will be very tired, but I found that after a few months you will adjust to the pill and feel okay.  I'm taking the pills now about three years already.

[wmac]

I am getting conflicting info. can anyone help?
First off with what info you all have what is the defintion of vt?
Second i read that pvc are not generally associtated with vt!
my cardi told me that i had a run of three pvc in a row and that i have vt. she said if you have more than one pvc in row with normal beats then its vt. then i read  you have to have 10-15 in a row or lasting longer than 30 seconds. can anyone help me with this?

[NBCT]

TRY the beta-blocker!! I having been taking Toprol XL 25mg for two years now after suffering with frequent PAC's, many bouts of ventricular bigeminy and trigeminy daily for six months. I would refuse to try medication for fear of side effects, but after submitting recordings from an event monitor I wore for three weeks, my cardiologist called me and stated that the readings "warranted use of a beta-blocker". That caused me concern, but he followed it with "your not going to drop dead,so don't worry". I agreed to try the med and only wish I had done so when he first offered it. I can do activities without feeling my heart race and skip, I am much more relaxed when I do have some irregular beats because occasional is far better than freguent. I finally feel in control of something I have no control over! Good Luck and feel better soon!

[wmac]

Thanks everyone for you comments back. Im so greatful for this forum and you all.

[PAT65]

I agree, no matter how many PVCs you have they are awful for those of us who feel them. I used to have one every few days or weeks so it was much easier to ignore, alas those days seem to be gone. To wmac, I have tried betapace(made me nervous to take it so I quit) and I have tried atenolol and lopressor. Right now I am trying Toprol xl and sure hope it helps. I really haven't noticed many symptoms myself unfortunately it doesn't really seem to help either. I'm going to keep trying until I get some sort of relief without increasing my risks as some drugs will do.

[PAT65]

I sure do understand your worry, however on my limited experience They may call a 3 beat run VT or trigeminy (bigeminy is 2 beats in a row) but from what I have seen it is usually not a reason for concern. If you just have 3 beats you are not going to drop dead. I think the concerning ones are the runs of PVCs that do not convert back to the original normal rhythm and the person may have symptoms with that. I just posted a question about that myself because I had what I thought was 7-9 beats of VT. Maybe we will get more definate answers to this problem soon. Hope that helps a little.