Frequent PVC's

[klsbb4]

I'm a 23 year old female with frequent PVC's. I've had them since I was a young teenager and they were tolerable then. However, about a year and a half ago they have gotten noticeably worse. They are so intense and uncomfortable that it interferes with the quality of my life. I have them all day long, 24/7. Any kind of movement, activity, stress, excitement, or whatever sets them off. I am seeing an EP specialist and I've had a cardiac ablation on May 7 2010. The ablation has done nothing but seem to have made them worse so far. I was on Metoprolol before the ablation with no success and now I am taking Verapramil 40mg twice daily and all it does is make me tired and gives me the worst headache ever without relieving my symptoms. I was very active, working out and/or running 2-3 miles a day and now I can't even imagine doing any kind of physical activity. I'm wondering why my PVC's got worse all of a sudden. I keep up with my hypothyroidism, in fact I just got it checked and I was being under medicated so my dosage was upped to .88mcg from 75mcg. I am taking the Nuvaring for birth control and that's it. Could it be hormones?

[cindy707]

Holy Gabolie....i would not even entertain the thought of having a second ablation so soon after the first.  I am unsure of what is happening w. your doc but sounds like you need a second opinion...the 90 day mark is the telling tale here...go on line read up talk to others....if now after the fact your doc is suddenly telling you "now i know what i missed" that is a huge red flag...that doc should have known while he/she was mapping you out on the table and generating the episodes with the meds....one to two weeks to know if it was a success is insane to me....your heart hasn't even had time to heal in that time after all of the prodding, penetrating and poking....if it were my body i would look for a specialist in your area and find out what they think...i KNOW FOR SURE that they will tell you 2 weeks to see if if was successful is just wrong and to attempt another one a couple of weeks later is just worse.  Try this...give your doc a little test...ask him if he knows who a Dr. Natale or Dr. Scheimann are....if he doesn't run run run...they are the docs who developed the procedure and if your doc hasn't read the case studies or clinical trials you have a problem KLSBB4.  I can only say that you are having issues w. meds, you are having issues w. your doc...first clue????  Your doc....just make the call at least you'll know and if it were my body no way....i would get all of the anwers first...we only have one shot at this life and why take a risk especially when we only have one heart and if someone "accidently" screws up you can't go backwards........

[klsbb4]

Thank you for your reply. See, I asked my doctors if my thyroid could have something to do with it and they said if I was Hyper not Hypo. But, they didn't say that the meds that I'm taking for it could cause heart palpitations. I've been taking levothyroxin/synthroid for 4 years now, wouldn't it have taken affect to my heat earlier?

[klsbb4]

I really appreciate your input/advice. I wasn't told that it could take a few months to notice a difference or to recover, I was told 1-2 weeks, that's why I'm concerned. I was also told that an ablation for PVC's is at a 90% success rate. I knew that it's going to take some time for my heart to heal, but I wasn't expecting it to feel worse than before I had the procedure. My doctor wants to do another ablation in a couple of weeks because he's almost certain that he knows why he didn't get it all the first time. According to him, I had two extra beets coming from different sides of my heart, one on the left and one on the right. I was one the table for 7 hours and another PVC came out of no where from a difficult area in my heart and he was having trouble getting to it. So.... I'm unsure if I should go through it again, especially this early.

[Nurse2b1982]

Hi! A couple of things: Medicine used to treat hypothyroidism is usually a form of thyroid hormone replacement which is known to cause tachycardia and palipations, this could have cause them to increase in frequency. Also, like the previous answerer said, you may need to give it a couple months or more to truely evaluate if the ablation worked. I'm sure u know that ablations are not always sucessful for PVCs. Also, make sure that u notify your doctor about the changes and the side effects of the meds, they may need to try something else. Also, I have frequent PVCs as well(4K daily) and mine do tend to get worse for no apparent reason, and then all the sudden, they lighten up....Thats one of the crazy things about PVCs. Also, flucuation in hormones can play a role in this as well. Good luck!!

[cindy707]

Sounds too me like you are jumping the gun a little here.  You just had the ablation a couple of weeks ago and need to give it time to do its job.  The docs say it takes up to 3 months to know if it is a fail or not but what you have posted is pretty typical. None of us that had ablations came out of it and immediately had no symtoms...it takes time for your heart to adapt to the work that was done on it and for the heart to re learn the correct pattern that the electrical activity is supposed to flow.  Each day should get a little better for you until eventually you hit your optimum. Your heart may very well just be hyper=sensitive to the procedure and is just acting up but if you sincerely feel that it is getting progressive like every single day you need to re contact your EP Doc AND your heart doc to get re examined to make sure that nothing else popped up on you.  The first couple of months are hit and miss after the procedure and if they have you on a BB to try to lesson the symtoms and the BB is giving you headaches w. no relief then they need to change you out.  I had my ablation for the same reason and had an issue w. the meds too and they ended up putting me on the antenolol at just .25 and it worked like a charm,  Get proactive and get your answers that is why they were paid the big bucks for the procedure...make them earn their money now....good luck