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What should I do with these constant PVCs or PACs?

To start off I'd like to say I'm a 19 year old male with no family history of heart disease, besides my mom who has high blood pressure. Last week I began experiencing this odd sensation in my throat and chest which forced me into the ER. My EKG was normal and my blood tests were normal however the doctor did hear my heart skipping beats. I was hooked on to another machine for a few hours which caught these irregular beats and was sent home with PVCs. Fast forward a stressful week of these constant irregular beat, all day it seems like. Or at least everytime I check my pulse I feel them. So I could possible be having these in the thousands. So today I visited a cardiologist who did an echocardiogram and said my heart looked good and my ekg looked good except that he said I'm experiencing PACs not PVCs. He told me to drink lots of water, bring down my anxiety levels(which I have tons of anxiety) and to come back in three months, sooner if anything changes. He did not suggest a holter monitor which worried me. What if I let whatever I'm feeling go on too long. As I typed this I've get a few of those beats. Any advice?
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1807132 tn?1318743597
Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done about them aside from an ablation but ablation for this type of issue is not always successful and can create more problems than good.  Premature beats tend to come and go so more often than not cardiologist do not treat them besides prescribing bp meds.  At your young age I would suspect any doctor would be hesitant to prescribe them to you.  Aside from the water and working on your anxiety you may also want to watch any caffeine, sugars or carbs and anything that may cause gas or acid reflux.  Do your best to try and ignore them because the more you focus on them the more of them you may get.  They are considered harmless in an otherwise healthy heart so try to make peace with them and work on your anxiety.  It will help your heart in more ways than just the premature beats.  Take care.
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Avatar universal
When you first experience PVCs, it's a terrible experience.  It freaks you out.  You think you're going to die!  After all, the heart cannot misfire without dire consequences, right?

Sure it can.  The heart is a nice motor with excellent backup systems.  It fires 100,000 times a day for more than 70 years for most people, and in all of them--repeat: all of them--it throws a funny beat or hiccup every day.

This is a fact.  If you study the heart at all, you quickly learn it's true. In most otherwise healthy people, fewer than 10,000 per day is considered insignificant by cardiologists.

So what to do about this?  Well, after you've had a number of EKG/ showing that you are normal and healthy, take conscious note of the fact that even when you're having several per minute, you can physically do everything you normally do.  Really, you can.  Your emotions have gone nuts, but you can do your grocery shopping; you can play with the computer; you can chase after your kids.  You just have this weird sensation in your chest--and a fire alarm going off in your brain.

The alarm in the brain is the problem, so you go to the right doctor for that problem--and the right doc is a mental health professional, also called a shrink.

You will learn techniques for dealing with your (probably genetic) anxiety, and you may even have to take a little medication for it.

But you will get your life back and even have fun again.
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