Anyone have this after a cardiac cath?

[mrsboston3122]

Hi everyone, maybe someone may have some advice for me. Since May of 2010 and I have had 4 episodes of almost blacking out. First one was in May, second one was in early July, third one was in September and the 4th one was late march of this year. I do not feel like I am spinning around dizzy, it just feels like I am going to faint, like I am battery operated and my batteries are dying, kind of like I was hit in the head. Its such an uncomfortable feeling. I am a 29 year old female with a history of PVCS, PACS, some SVT and another rhythm that I get every so often that has not been caught yet. It feels like a whole bunch of PVCS in a row but hard ones and like my heart is stuck, its pretty fast and takes my breath away, only last for about 15 seconds and its gone just as fast as it hit, it comes out of the blue and stops on a dime with a usually a big bang at the end. No idea what it is, but its the most scariest of all so I am thankful that it does not happen often, a few times a year. Anyway back in May of 2010 I had been getting chest pains and no one could figure out why, they kept getting worse and finally my cardio suggest we do a heart cath just to look because I have some risk factors and my father and his father died at 50 and 51 suddenly from what they believe to be heart problems. I never met my father or his family so I am clueless, this is what I was told from my fathers oldest daughter. I was afraid to have the cath but did it because I was afraid and I had an EP study for the SVT in 2006 that went ok so I went ahead and did it. Everything looked good from the test and come to find out later in July that it was gallbladder that was causing the chest pain. Why didnt anyone think of this?? I had it removed and all was well. I still get chest pains but figure its gas or something. I also have gotten a huge increase in the PVCS since May of 2010 but I have had all the testing so there is nothing left to do but try and deal with them. I have them everyday but before May I use to just get them once a month maybe. I dont know what happened but it worries me. Anyway I am getting off subject. The feeling faint first started about a week after the cath, do you guys think maybe something happened during that cath to my heart? I never ever had this feeling before the cath and since it started one week after its the only thing that I can think of. I dont feel palpations when it happens though, the lightheaded feeling is the feeling I get. I guess you could be having a rhythm problem even though you dont feel it right? I am so afraid of this feeling. They told me I would not feel the cath in my heart but I did feel it in there, it even made my heart flutter while it was in there. I am just frustrated because I have been to my regular doctor, an ENT to check my ears, to my cardio who was going to make me get a tilt test but they never called to set it up and now in NOV I lost my job so there went my insurance. I have no money now for the test. I dont know what else to do but I am sick of being afraid. I am just learning to deal with my PVCS and now I have another equally scary problem to deal with. All my test have been negative. What do you guys think? I really hate to think that something is wrong now with my heart because of that one test, its my fault because I kept pushing for testing to figure out what was wrong and now I may have given myself a real problem. I doubt its related but its really it makes me wonder since it started a few days after this test.

[mrsboston3122]

Hi Lisa, and thank you for helping me to understand further:) Its a little confusing but I am getting it. What I read I will send you, I saved it to my desk top so I have it. It does not mention 5 PVCS in a row. It just says in these words, 5 PVCS a minute are considered dangerous and life threating and should be further investigated and treated. It was creepy because my cardio who I have been seeing since I was 22 has told me over and over that it did not matter how many I had that because my heart was normal it would not kill me. As far as I know I dont have any problems with my heart besides the rhythm problems. The first time I went to the ER after feeling the lightheadness, when they put the finger thing on my finger it said my heart rate was 31 and sat there for a good 3 minutes before I went up. The guy was just about to check if something was wrong with it when it went to normal. He never wrote it down and when I mentioned it to the ER doctor he said if your heart rate was 30 you would not be awake. I was really lightheaded. I have had brady many times on EKGS but not serious, low 50s late 40s. I know at times when I sleep it goes way down. When I was 23 I was in the ER for palpations and fell asleep. The lady nurse came in the shaking me and asked me how I was feeling. I felt fine just tired LOL. She said the doctor had her go in and wake me because my heart rate when to 28. I am by no means active but I really need to be. I have noticed that each time I get really upset I start getting PVCS and then it turns into an episode that last for hours! I am also getting bad episodes a week before my cycle. I notice when my heart rate drops to the low 60s and lower I start to get a lot of PVCS and maybe this is why BB make things worse. I just done know what is going on and the only reason I brought up the cath I had is because this is when this all started, I believe it was about 4 days after I was driving in the car on my way to work and it felt like someone hit me in my head, my vision went black. It lasted only maybe a second. It did not hurt it was kind of like I blacked out but I didnt and now every couple of months I get an episode like that one but last a couple seconds longer and then its gone. I feel myself fighting it. I am just so scared that something went wrong during that test and caused a problem. I am going to talk to the EP doctor about this when he calls today and I am going to talk to regular cardio about it also. I am just lost right now. Thanks for listening.

[Mom2four85]

was it in the virtual cath lab?

If so, they're talking about R-on-T phenomenon and the reason that 5 pvc's in a row would be dangerous and lead to VT/Vtach and possibly Vfib.

hopefully I got the technical part down right hehehe I'm not much in explaining technical terms, so hopefully that makes sense =)

[Mom2four85]

To my knowledge,  5 pvc's a minute (7200 per 24/hours) is not life threatening or even dangerous, unless there are structural heart problems.  If so, there would be so many of us in the HR forum that would be dx with dangerous arrhythmia's more frequently.

If you have a structurally normal heart, you can have 80,000 and be fine - my dr treats a woman who actually has you guessed it - 80,000 pvc's daily...but nothing else is wrong and he only treats her with beta blockers and she's fine.

The thing with very frequent pvc's >10 per minute is there is a slight chance of developing pvc's induced cardiomyopathy, that almost always reverts when the problem is fixed or treated.

There are some doctors/medical professionals who believe that to have a dangerous rhythm you HAVE to had some type of structural problem first; which is not entirely true - I had no structural problems and was dx with malignant arrhythmia's; then developed CM and some other things.

Here's some info from the National Library of Medicine http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2913541

"About 5 percent of arrhythmias are serious, life threatening, malignant arrhythmias (MA)."

"The MA is regularly associated with organic heart diseases (coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy, valvular heart diseases), but a MA can develop without cardiac disorders e.g. in long QT syndrome or WPW syndrome."

"The most frequent type of the MA is the ventricular tachycardia (VT), mostly the sustained VT, not rarely degenerating to ventricular fibrillation (VF). The primary VF represents a rarer form of MA. The usual type of MA is the tachycardiac form, but there exists a MA with dominating bradycardia (bradycardia syncope, tachycardia associated with long lasting bradycardia)."

Can you send me the link about the pvc's being dangerous or life threatening? I would love to read it and put it with my research under my Q&A on arrhythmia's http://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/show/268842/QAs-about-arrhythmias?personal_page_id=861727

[mrsboston3122]

I had this cath done a year ago next month. I called my EP doctor since I had a 30 day monitor a few months ago and they never gave me a follow up and the woman said he would call me tomorrow to go over it with me. I am going to ask him some questions about this. I am going to make an appointment with my regular cardio and ask him to run the basic test again since this has started happening after the cath. I am really worried that something happened while they were in there. It just dont seem right to me and its the only thing that I can trace back to. I hope its not my heart. I just keep thinking what if its that dangerous one. Vtach?? I think its called. I do get palpations in my neck sometimes, One time I had an episode of very fast heart rate in the 190's and my heart felt like it was having a lot of PVCS with it and when I felt my pulse it was barley there. I would feel it and then not feel it for a while but when the ambulance came to take me I had got my heart rate down to about 160 and they said though it was fast it looked good. They said they thought it may have been PSVT and thats what the discharge paper said. This was a few weeks before I had the cath done though. Its really not so much the fast heart rates or PVCS and such anymore. With everyones help on here I have some how managed to remain calm when they happen it seems to lessen the episodes. This lightheaded feeling just hits me so hard and its so scary, I mean it last only seconds, I cant feel my heart doing anything funky at the time. I never in my life felt anything like this. Even with the very fast heart rates, I feel weak and a little dizzy but nothing as strong as this. I hate to think that I have become my own worst enemy, pushing and pushing for testing. I feel like I may have turned an innocent problem into something serious. I wish I would have just listened when they said they doubted the chest pains were from my heart and left it at that. I know my doctor probably ordered the cath because he felt I would not be satisfied until I knew for sure. He said I did have some risk factors and it was the only way to be sure. I am such a fool. I have a question while doing research and I know I should not have done this either, there was something written by an EP doctor that said if you had more then 5 PVCS a minute that it was dangerous and life threating, have you ever heard of this? I personally have had way more the 5 a minute for hours and I am still here, also from what I have been told it does not matter how many you have if your heart is normal. I am scared about what I read also. Thanks for your help.

[ed34]

The only thing I can think of, is maybe the cath has caused vasospasm, which it can do sometimes from the tickling of the catheter against the artery lining. I had this for a few weeks after my cath in 2009, but calcium channel blockers stopped it. Unless they can see the artery having spasms, I'm not sure how they can test for it. I remember it felt like a twitching sensation in my chest, like my heart was suddenly twisting and then there would be a big heart beat, which cleared it temporarily.