Just don't get it..

[RNRita]

So it was over 2 weeks and I never rec'd a phone call about my holter monitor results.  If anyone remembers, I wore one for two days.  Nothing happened, for some odd reason (lol), but my heart has been awful before and since.  I wrote a note stating all this when I handed in my holter.  No call.  I called the office and left a message, no call back. I called them again and talked to someone there and explained to her what had happened.  She seemed to understand (she gets them, too) and told me she would see that the doc called me back.  I tole her that I needed her to tell him that I am NOT crazy, that I am well aware that nothing happened for two days (she read me 487 ectopics first day, about 200 the second...I felt none of them on the second day) and that she should tell him that we need to try an event monitor or something.  I also told her that I worked on Friday and that was the only day he couldn't call me.  So......

He called me on Friday.  My husband gave him my cell number and he called while I was at work (of course) and left a message saying that he doesn't know what I want him to do because I really had nothing wrong on the holter.  I just sat and blinked at the phone. I mean, what does it take?  Now I know it will take me another two weeks to get ahold of someone.  Geesh.

On that happy note, tonight every time I take a deep breath, my heart skips a bunch of times.  When I yawn, it feels like it is having spasms, no kidding.  Just thought I'd add a new symptom to my myriad of others for fun and all.....!!!

[dogtag]

Like others,  I've kept track of what I think causes my "skips" as I call them.  They were diag as PVC's and they started when I was 21 years old.  I'm now 67 and had a 5 way bypass eight years ago.  In the mean time,  I've lost weight and am on a healthy diet and go to Cardiac Rehab three times a week and have for the last eight years.  I've had the PVC's more or less all those years.
Here's what I find sets mine off.    Full stomach.  Some foods such as onions and red wine.
Also,  since I've been on a diuretic for years,  I have to watch my potassium level like a hawk.
Even in the low end of normal,  I get the shakes, weakness and tons of skips.  1 out of 10 beats.  
Taking my potassium supplement with some gater aid reduces the skips within two or three hours.  You would think I'd learn but sometimes when you get busy you forget to eat the right food.
I don't recommend a supplement unless you talk to your Doctor first and have a blood panel done.  To much potassium can be just as deadly as not enough.
I also carry a can of V8 (low sodium) in the car with me at all times.  Turns out one little can has 1/4 your daily requirement.  They replaced sodium with potassium salt.  Neat idea.

Hope this helps.  I have been living with the curse for half a century.  Note,  I said LIVING.
Don't let this curse ruin your quality of life.  Benign PVC's aren't likely to kill ya.....

[itdood]

The first cardiloigst I went to only did 24 hour holters.  I wanted to change and asked my PCP, he hooked me up with a cardiologiy practice that offered 14 or 30 day event monitors.  It was a cardionet monitor that uses cell service to phone home.  I like cardionet :-)

http://www.cardionet.com/

[wolfgang_jillie]

i had an awful experience with the dr that ordered the halter monitor for me as well I had 30 day that was done from Oct to November no results by the time 4 weeks had gone by called almost everyday finally got the results in FEBRUARY !!!!  She said everything was ok, I disagreed found a different Dr who recommended a cardiologist same week appointment 2 weeks later had an ablation done for AVNRT.....I hope that you can get to the bottom of your ordeal..I know it can be very frustrating....stay strong and stay adamant about how you are feeling..hope you can get to the bottom of it....

[RNRita]

So very true.  Lately, they feel like someone is shaking me from the inside......HAHAHAHA  I am running out of ways to describe the new sensations!

[Ihatepalps2]

ahhh...Rita..again...we have so much in common. Thats pretty much VERY similiar to the last holter I wore, in June of last year. I wore that dumb thing, and I had one of the BEST days as far as palps go..I was SO mad!! I also wrote on my "diary" paper, that "it is not a typical day for me"..... I too..was promised a call. It didnt come. I think I waited 3-4 days for a call, even though I had called the Dr office and they kept saying someone would call me back.  They finally did...said I had 7400 mixed PVC/PAC and that they saw NOTHING out of the ordinary. In fact, the cardio seemed irritated!! My opinion was, from his tone, that he was thinking, will you QUIT bothering me with these things? And I know, people will say, get a different cardiologist...but...Ive done that too! I just had a complete physical with my regular Dr. And I LIKE the guy. But..I tried to talk about my palpitations...and...it was like he was just quiet...letting me blab away...and when I got done? He suggested I go on an antidepressant!!!
SO...that is 2 doctors just in the past few months, that act like they are nothing. I had 2 ER visits last year.
The last one---they did an EKG right away...and then they NEVER even hooked me up to a heart monitor!!!!!!! I laid in that little ER exam room for hours..they ran some bloodwork..but I was off monitor the entire time. What the heck sense was that!?!?!?
SO, I guess, bottom line, its drilled into me that these are nothing....but I think I will NEVER believe it, because as they are happening (right now!) they dont FEEL like nothing!!!!

[DeltaDawn23]

I'm going to see the doc, excuse me, the nurse practitioner in the morning.  What is your regimen again?  BB and then calcium channel blocker?  they are supposed to be examing my meds and recommending change I hope.  Thought I would mention your combination to them.

[DeltaDawn23]

Keep asking, don't let them blow you off.  I am so sick of being at the mercy of the system.  I thankfully, have a wonderful primary care doc to advise me.  See my post on "does anyone else have this problem? -- can't get in to see the doc.

[Jerry_NJ]

Seem like strange behavior on the part of the monitor service, but especially so on the part of your doctor, cardiologist assumed.

In my case, and I've stayed with the cardiologist anyway, he seems to be happy with the rate control and my tolerance/success with an anticoagulant - generic warfarin.  Or, he has met his Hippocratic oath (is that the right word?) if I have a "reasonable" quality of life and die in a few years from heart failure or a clot/stroke.  I will have reached "life expectancy" by then anyway.  This is consistent with the way the current health law is structured for when it takes over.

In your case you are young enough for them to want to cure you, well that's how I see it.  So I don't have an answer for why your get the run-a-round.  

[bbxx]

Yuck--it all stinks. BOY---I would love to have your holter results though!