Very Forceful Palpitations?

[andrea2289]

Hi everyone,

I have posted here a couple times and still love reading this board. I find much
comfort in knowing I am not alone.

My palpitation shave gotten much better since I have gotten off laxatives, but lately
I have been experiencing very random VERY forceful beats. It is really weird. I will
feel fine all day and then be totally relaxed, watching American Idol lol, and I get a
sudden flip-flopping that is so forceful it sometimes startles me, and then it seems like
it takes a minute or two for my heartbeat to regulate itself and then I am fine. Other
than my blood pressure and my pulse both always being low, I have no other problems.
Do you guys have any suggestions?

Thanks!!

[Artaud]

Hi,

It's always best to see your Doctor if you are concerned.

I recently came out of my last episode of PVCs, lasting more than a year, with over 600 PVCs per day. Though I am aware that the PVCs have a certain feel to them, there is no real set pattern of how each one feels. I have had feelings from the most minor of flips to some major ones that I though were going to be serious.

Oddly enough, when we get a PVC (Premature Ventricular Contraction), the beat occurred before it was expected, thus premature. We don't feel this beat. The heart pauses, trying to re-establish the rhythm, and the pause is known as a Compensatory Pause.  The technical definition is:

"The pause following an extrasystole, when the pause is long enough to compensate for the prematurity of the extrasystole; the short cycle ending with the extrasystole plus the pause following the extrasystole together equal two of the regular cycles."

Or, bottom line, the pause is two of the regular cycles in length.

If you are resting, and your heart is beating slowly, the length of two regular cycles is longer than if you are walking and your heart is beating faster.

During the Compensatory Pause, blood is rushing back into your heart, despite the pause. If the length of the pause is longer when you are at rest, and blood rushes in, you will get a more complete filling of the Ventricles during this pause. When the next beat occurs, your heart has this additional blood to force out, and this is what we feel as the bang. This may be why you feel them more strongly at rest than if you were active.

Be well.

[andrea2289]

Thank-you for that explanation. I have an appointment with a cardiologist in 2 weeks. I have been to a couple already but never made it past the first appointment because I was treated very condescendingly (your a healthy young woman, are you sleeping enough, are you stressed, blah blah blah). This appointment is with a younger specialist, a woman, so I am hoping to be taken a little more seriously and am allowed to have my own opinions/questions without automatically being a ‘hypochondriac’.

[upbeat633]

I know what you mean about feeling the specialists aren't taking you seriously. I've mostly seen my MD for PVCs, and she is very understanding. But a cardiologist I saw 14 years ago said, benign, live with them, beta-blockers might help or may make them worse, but if you take BBs you'll be on them the rest of your life. I was only 30, that kind of scared me.

When the PVCs kicked up to 1250/hr a cardiologist told me there was nothing new for their treatment. They are benign. Try to live with them, experiment with beta-blockers because BBs help, some people.

Recently, a very nice electrophysiologist, asked why I kept pursuing this issue. See my recent post "my 1st ever EP visit",.  He did a lot of smiling, and I knew what he was thinking, but I found the whole thing quite comical, I wasn't getting any PVCs in his office. ughh.

He said, they are benign, no matter the pattern, no matter the frequency. Treatment with anti-arrythimic drugs may cause higher mortality because they have the risk of producing a more serious arrythimia. Ablation is considered high risk for pvcs unless the pvcs are causing ventricular tachycardia, that's the only time he would consider an ablation for pvcs, he says the procedure is not for the condition of pvcs. Or if a person developed a cardimyopathy. This is an extremely rare development even if you have high frequency, and I get well over 20,000/day.

I hope you find the answers you seek with this new specialist. I think the most important part of the visit is that you will feel confident in the answers she provides, and go forth with that infomation feeling confident with it.  

I agree with Artuad and many others on this forum though, any time the frequency or pattern changes significantly, its important to get it checked. Just because heart specialists can't really do amuch for pvcs, it doesn't mean they can't do their job and investigate the health of our hearts with care and concern.