nsvt?

[farrrukh]

hi iam new to ths site....first of all its a great comfort to know that what ever you are going through you are not alone and u have all these people with you....now a little history.......i am 25 yr old male...exercise( brisk walk ) six days a week for one and a half hour..... i have been suffering from pacs and pvcs from the last 5 years.....had couple of echos and stress test done all were fine.....3 months ago i had a holter done which showed just a single pvc and 10 pacs of which two were a run of three pacs with a rate of 87 beats per minute.....now recently i have started feeling  pacs or pvcs(as i cant predict what is the origin of the beat) in a row about 3 to 8 beats specially when i am stressed or thinking about palps ....some times they often get away as i stand up or change my posture......my cardio says with all the tests result and a normal heart  u have nothing to worry about......i do not feel palps quite often maybe 10 or 20 beats at max daily some times i would go for days not having them.....now my question is that i have read all the scary stuff about NSVT so i would like to know that how many pvcs do the people suffering from NSVT have during a day?  are their pvcs in greater number? as i think the runs that i get could most probably be svt and not nsvt? sorry for the long post.....lastly how true is this that  even NSVT in a normal heart if of no danger? thnx a lot for answering.....

[farrrukh]

hi again and thanx for the reply and let me tell you it was quite reassuring.....

[is_something_wrong]

Wow, you've read a lot of scary stuff :) Unfortunately we do, and it's almost amazing how scary cardiology can be. After all, we only have one heart, and it's kind of good night if it should fail.

Anyway..

Short runs of PACs (nonsustained atrial tachycardia) are completely normal and very common (Quote: my cardiologist). If you have short runs that end with the "PAC feeling" (pause and hard beat) you most likely have some kind of short atrial tachycardia.

NSVT on the other hand is more uncommon in healthy hearts, but it's not dangerous at all. It should be investigated, though (to see if it has mechanisms that can make it turn into longer runs of VT). As I said, it's uncommon, and unless you have thousands of PVCs on Holter (which you didn't, you had one, and this is likely to be a wide-complex (early) PAC anyway, hard for them to see the difference on Holter) chance of NSVT is close to zero.

NSVT that occur during rest is harmless in healthy hearts. Extreme increase in PVCs and NSVT during hard exercise is somewhat concerning. VT in non-healthy hearts is NEVER benign.

The danger associated with VT is 2 things. First, the pumping abilities of each heartbeat are reduced by 30% (due to lack of atrial effect). Second, VT doesn't have any functionality to limit its speed, so it can in theory (in sick hearts) go far above safe heart rates.

This is (as mentioned) only a concern in sick hearts, with reduced pumping abilities. If the heart can't pump enough blood due to high heart rate and low effect (as mentioned above) you can go into V-fib. In healthy hearts, this is never a concern, and I'm sure you could handle VT far above 200 BPM for a long time without any significant risk.

However, I'm no doctor, and you should mention this to your cardiologist, just to be sure. It can be really reassuring, too.

I'm sorry to read so many people doesn't understand what VT is, and for that reason, you are afraid of it. I hope this is an explaination why NSVT is nothing to fear in healthy hearts.

But - as mentioned. Chance of NSVT is almost none.