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Stomach issues = PVC's?

Does anybody else experience PVC's or PAC's when their stomach is upset? I am anxious most of the time, so my stomach is almost constantly roiling, but when I have worse stomach issues, my heart seems to skip when my stomach knots up. Not to be gross, but having a bowel movement can also make my heart skip. Does anybody else encounter this? Thanks.
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Avatar universal
I have heart disease and went into the er last night after a horrible episode of pvc. They ran the common tests, blew out a couple veins and sent me on my way. My pcp wants to refer me to a GI specialist. Im hoping to get some relief soon
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Hey rhughey what kind of heart disease do you have im having a ton of pvcs as well ive been told they are benign and not to worry unless i get them like 15 in a row im just wondering cause they are causing me a **** ton of anxiety as i have heary disease as well
Avatar universal
Definitely notice more skipped beats when I'm bloated & have lots of painful gas. The vagus nerve definitely is conntected to both the digestive system and the heart. There's a connection here that a lot of doctors aren't considering (my doc is a naturopath and he explained the connection to me).
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Avatar universal
Definitely notice more skipped beats when I'm bloated & have lots of painful gas . The vagus nerve definitely is conntected to both the digestive system and the heart. There's a connection here that a lot of doctors aren't considering (my doc is a naturopath and he explained the connection to me).
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I also have PAC's associated with stomach acid/indegestion and have found that an acid reducer - TAGAMET stops them.  They seem to go and come so I just keep some with me all the time.  I figured this out myself after taking 1 from a friend and the PAC's stopped within 30 mins.  The Dr. in the ER thought I was crazy when I went in  the first time it happened (scary when they first start).  He told me to just ignore it!?  Once they start I take 2 a day for a week and I'm good for about 6 months until they start again.
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996946 tn?1503249112
Have you ever wondered if it's blood sugar-related?  When your blood sugar fluctuates wildly, your heart reacts to it.  It has to do with the insulin your pancreas is producing or consequently, not producing.  Have you ever had your Hemoglobin A1c checked?  Or are you diabetic?  
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1298588 tn?1330318981
I always feel hungry right before my skipped beats too! I don't know whether being in a state of hunger causes the skipped beats, or if the skipped beats start on their own and make me feel hungrier than before. I haven't been able to find an answer anywhere as to why this happens. Glad I'm not the only one ...
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Avatar universal
I have the same issue with gas ( burping ) while experiencing my skipped beat. also I've notice I tend to feel hungry right  before they start. Does anyone else have the hunger issue with skipped beats ?
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996946 tn?1503249112
I have much fewer problems with acid reflux, in fact none, since my Dr prescribed me Omeprazole....works like a charm! Almost no PVC's/PAC's. Stomach seems much more settied down.
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Avatar universal
The secret is finding out what foods cause you gas.  Also  go to a GI doctor and get an upper endoscopy done(camera down throat).  You most likely have gastritis in the area where the vagus nerve connects.  Gas expands the stomach allowing the nerve ending to be irritated sending errant signals to the heart.  Tylenol helps if you can take it....watch out for the liver.

My best defense is acid reducers ( prescriptive kind), and not eating the gassy foods like apples, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, sugar, etc.  Taking Beano before meals with beans or veggies helps also.
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Avatar universal


I am glad you found this thread...  I also have this epigastric feeling before and during episodes of pac/pvc's and it was recommended that I take pepcid ac 20 mg 2x/day.  that seems to work. My pac's/pvc's are episodic, some days there are none and other days they are continuous.  They usually begin at noon and continue to dinner time.  Hard to predict when I get them so I rather not take pepcid every day just in case.  There are a lot of us out there with this common symptom.  
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Avatar universal
I am excited to have found this thread, hope it is still active.  I have been in alot of abdominal pain for 4 months. pregant size destention, heart palpitations, pain in breast bone and in back. fatique.  Walking, moving, bending over, riding in an auto just bloats me up horribly and causes sleepiness, weakness, nausea and trouble breathing .  Have had heart tests done, been treated for asthma for 2 yrs( I do not have). Dr said IBS but didn't really listen to me. I did the IBS diet and took the med - it did not help.  Now that I look back this has gone on for years. I am now unable to be up and around for more than a couple hours of light movement. I do not go anywhere because I can not ride in the auto. Seen alot of Dr without getting the right dignosis - I now have an consultation with a university medical dr. It just makes me so upset to think of all the people out there that does not get treated properly because the Dr. makes up his mind in advance and doesn't listen.  If I can get any sucess I will post back and let everyone know the out come.
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Avatar universal
ever get a bunch of..I guess PVC's in rapid succession for about 5 seconds? They hasppen to me about once a month and scare the daylight outaa me!
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Avatar universal
Hi All- This is a very interesting thread.  A few years ago I was having problems with SVT's (supra ventricular tachycardia) when eating.  I could feel the food hit the sphincter muscle in my stomach, and as often as not I'd have several "skipped" beats of the heart, then it would settle down.  One hot day I drank a glass of cold water, and my heart went into arrhythmia for about 40 minutes, long enough for me to get to the ER and get it recorded.  Fortunately, my heart converted to normal beats by itself, though PVC's remained pretty severely for several days.  I went to my heart doctor and mentioned what my heart did when I ate.  He'd never seen such a thing, so I showed him!  I brought a sandwich with me into the office, they hooked me up, I ate the sandwich and they were totally shocked when my heart did about four fast beats, then settled down.  The doc put me on a light dose of atenolol (a beta blocker), and that pretty much took care of the problem.  I still have periods of occasional PVC's, but I know at this point that they're not dangerous.  I've also found that an acidy tummy doesn't help matters at all!  A previous post told about using Zantac, and I've found that to help as well.  I do believe it to be the vegus nerve in my case, though I never received a definitive answer from the doctor.  The vegus nerve follows the esophagus down to the stomach and around the sphincter area; that nerve also travels to most of the organs of the body!  It's the vegus nerve that caused blood pressure to drop and a person to faint when, say, blood is drawn, so the vegus nerve is certainly connected to heart matters.  Hope this helps!  God Bless to all!
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Avatar universal
I almost always have my skipping feeling after I eat or after I work out and I can feel my food being pushed through my digestive tract. I will have the skipped beats then I will feel everything shift and I am in the bathroom within ten minutes. Its like clockwork. It is much worse with heavy foods or high sodium foods or if I haven't slept as much. I hate these things. I am 24 and very atheletic. Why me. Lol
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Avatar universal
I almost always have my skipping feeling after I eat or after I work out and I can feel my food being pushed through my digestive tract. I will have the skipped beats then I will feel everything shift and I am in the bathroom within ten minutes. Its like clockwork. It is much worse with heavy foods or high sodium foods or if I haven't slept as much. I hate these things. I am 24 and very atheletic. Why me. Lol
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I am 37 and I have been tortured by PVC's for about a year and a half.  At first I would get them mostly at night when I would lay down...I attributed it to eating too late, but then I stopped eating after 6:30 pm and they would still occur.  They were getting worse and worse, so I went to a GI specialist first, thinking that I had GERD or a hiatal hernia or something, but my Gastroenterologist did a colonoscopy and an EGD (scope of the upper GI tract) and he found nothing wrong.  Then I went to a cardiologist because I just couldn't take it anymore.  They did an echocardiogram which showed nothing abnormal and great ventricular function, and a stress test which was perfect....not one PVC and no ST abnormalities at all,  So my doctor suggested a beta blocker - metoprolol - which actually made the problem worse.  So I was back at square one.  I tried to narrow down what in the world could possibly be causing them.  My husband suggested that it seemed my PVC's had increased since getting our cat. SO, I thought, hmmmm....PVC's can be a symptom of allergies, so why not try Claritin or benadryl.  Well, it seems to have helped immensely! I started taking Claritin once daily in the morning and I have FINALLY been getting some good nights of sleep!!  I hope it isn't just some temporary relief for some unknown reason.  Hope this helps!
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Avatar universal
Ya for sure this happens to me alot changes my day completely I hate it. been suffering with this since I was young and i'M 33 NOW. Stress causes this to happen more but ya gas can cause major havoc in my body.
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1147530 tn?1314821596
Yup, same here. If I have an active palp day which then increase, suddenly I have to have a bowel movement, due to the high adrenaline that kicks in as a result of my anxiety.  
So that seems like a reaction to the PVC's.
Than many times in the morning, after having a BM that leaves me feeling drained and empty, starts my PVC's big time lasting for an hour at a time or longer.  My cardiologist attributed that to a reaction of high adrenaline/cortisol in the body.
I did notice that when I regularly take psyllium husk, the BM's in the morning are more calm, not so violent as the ones that leave me drained and empty.  Sorry guys, but perhaps extra fiber may also absorb some of the extra aggressive hormones in our bodies that contribute to these PVC's.  Possibly?
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Avatar universal
Same symptoms as the rest of y'all--   sorry for our "issues" but good to know we're not alone.  I've experienced heart flutters for the past several months--  not sure what they are, but from the research I've done, they sound like PVC's.  Brief period of fluttering followed by a brief pause, and then the normal rhythm resumes.  Sometimes once or twice a week, sometimes a couple times per day.  Scary as crap.  EKG and echocardiogram came back normal, but I am absolutely convinced, like many of you, that there's a link between gas and heart stuff.  I have a lot of gas, and that seems to exacerbate the heart symptoms.  I frequently get them after a large meal when I sit back or lay down, or in the car when I'm sitting up but feel bloated.  I stopped drinking coffee and cut other sources of caffeine, but I still get them.  I also have mild sleep apnea and use a CPAP, which probably only contributes to the gas/bloated feeling.  Docs seem to be generally clueless or skeptical about these links and common factors we've observed.    
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Avatar universal
This is definitely caused (at least in my case) from the vagal nerve.  I suffered with the same arrhythmia problem for years, just after eating during digestion or consuming alcoholic beverages, and all of the doctors I spoke with never even mentioned the vagal nerve as being causative for the skipped beats or PVC's.  There seems to be VERY little research in this area---and diagnosis or knowledge  connecting the two also seems to be very rare.

So, I took matters into my own hands after doing MUCH research through forums such as this one.  Although I don't suffer from GERD or any other type of digestive disorders or acid reflux, I decided to try an acid reducing over the counter medication.  THIS WAS THE MAGIC BULLET!  75mg of Ranitidine (Zantac)----one first thing in the morning and one before dinner at night, and the arrhythmias WENT AWAY COMPLETELY.

Your results may vary, so please don't take this as medical advice--I just wanted to let you and the group know (and the MD's and cardiologists if they are reading this)  that there is a definite connection between digestive tract acid, vagal nerve stimulation (or destimulation) and heart arrhythmias.  

Good luck, and if you decide to try this and it works, God Bless.
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911377 tn?1242838191
Well heres something personal. Is everyone who is getting PVC's or PAC'c with Gastirc origin overweight? I get them and need to loose 40 lbs. I wonder if less congestion in the abdomen (reduced fat) would help? With me they're positional, I can get them leaning over, laying down, etc.
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98523 tn?1322074646
yes foos effects them terrrible for me if im hungry if I eat to much no sugar too much sugar pooping straining I know gross but we are all in this together I like it like this not so scary anymore ...
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739242 tn?1234217827
You're right. Who really knows what causes these things?

After a while of them gone, they're back. I had a decaf coffee, and that seemed to bring them on. Does decaf do this too? Jeez. No coffee at all?!?! Sigh.

I can't imagine living with this for the rest of my life. It is so depressing. It does give me hope to see all the people here who are muddling through with PVCs, though. Strength in numbers!
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267401 tn?1251852496
Sometimes I think a list of things that don't cause PVC's would be a shorter list.

I own my own business, and there was a time when I had to take a client to court.  This client was AWEFUL.  During the year or two it took for the litigation to progress, anytime I'd get a call from her, my heart would start firing off PVC's.

Sometimes, if I eat a big meal, I'll get PVC's.

If I bend over, sometimes I'll get PVC's.

Lots of caffeine?  PVC

Etc, etc.  If you're overweight, it might cause more.  You name it.  Anyway, I wish you success in dealing with your situation.
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