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PVC'S and low BP

I am a 47 y/o female and have had many tests done and have been told to just live with it! I have been in the hospital twice in the past year for chest pain and irregular heart beat. I have had a stress test, holter monitor, 24 hour monitor, many EKG's. The 24 monitor showed over 1400 pvc's, SVT, 2nd degree heart block and much more. the cardiologist did not seem impressed and only wanted to put me on a beta blocker, but my BP runs normally around 90/60. Not one doctor has ever done an ECHO on me even with me asking many times. All blood work normal.

I work a full time job around 50 hours a week and then my part time job as a firefighter every third night 12 hour shifts. I do have CAD in my family and that worries me. I can't seem to get these doctors to look further into this, and they only say "it's not life threatening and live with it". Well I can't when it effects me everyday and affects my jobs. I have my hospital follow up tomorrow with my family doctor and will some how get her to order a ECHO.

Any suggestions would be great!  Thank you!


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995271 tn?1463924259
wow, you are very busy, high stress jobs.  I think the twitchy heart comes with the territory.  I'm the same way.

I elected not to go with BBs or CCBs.

I had a lot more PVCs than you.  I was getting about 6,000 to 9,000 per day at the time.  I'm also 100% Italian so I am genetically 4x higher risk for a disease called ARVD.   Due to my race, and high PVC load, and strong family history they insisted that I get echos and we went one step further, a cardiac MRI.  Also have strong family history for CAD, my father had a massive LAD MI when he was 42, somehow survived, ended up with a heart transplant.  So i have everything working against me.

An experienced cardiologist probably already knows what they're going to find on an echo for you.  That's probably why they aren't interested.  If they have any clinical presentation indicating more tests, they will not hesitate.  I would take that as good news.  

My cardiac MRI confirmed findings on the echo.  Cardiac MRI is nice too, because it can check for CAD really well, which they said at the time I was wide open, no restrictions in arterial blood flow.  I had this done when I was my father's age when he had the MI, I was 42.  strange how that lined up, perhaps it was in my head.


My suggested strategy for getting the echo, is to

-go to a new cardiology practice for a 2nd opinion
-Clinically it may not justify more tests, so then I would bring up risk factors instead.  These are:  stressful work life, family history, PVC load, any other risk factors you can think of such as lifestyle risk factors such as a high BMI, or smoker.

hope that helps


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1 Comments
Wow, thank you so much. Well I did go to my PCP today and she did order the stress echo and also going to see a new Cardio. She also wants me to have a sleep eval done to see if that might be causing some issue too. It's a start and willing to do it all. Thank you so much for all your great advise. She knows my family history and wants to get things moving.
Your advise is great and all your kind openness helps. It's nice to talk to someone that understands.

Thank you again!
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