Bigeminy and Ablation

[che-kier]

I am a 33 year old female and have been experiencing  episodes of PVC's for approx. 6 yrs.  The frequency, intensity, and duration increased dramaticly 6 mos. postpartem.  I often have episodes that wake me in the night with strong PVC's, hot and faint with diarrhea.  The episodes used to last about a month at a time with 1000's of PVC's daily, then they would go away for months.  In 11/03 I started synthroid and the instantly disappeared for over a year until 3/05.  I am extremely chemically sensitive and I ran into a situation at work where I had a strong reaction after my my workplace was painted with oil based paint.  Since that time I have 1000's of PVC's daily with bouts of bigeminy, trigeminy. I often get lightheaded, tightness in chest and upper back, I get these adrenaline type surges.  I spent 4 days in the hospital last week after "greying out" several times in a day and feeling very weak.  The doc's tried Toperal, sodilol (sp?)with no change, even seemed to exacerbate.  Amiodarone helped initially then no success.   An EP who said this sounds like Autonmic Dysautomnia.  wants to do exploratory EP study.
Do ablations work for PVC's?  Sometimes I get these rush feelings before the PVC's act up so I wonder if an ablation will even take care of the othe surge thing.  can imbalanced hormones cause this?  I have already seen the influence of thyroid and pregnancy.  Can this just be years of stress catching up?  Should I do exploratry mission or just learn to cope?  Is this an issue of a hyper nervous sytem? Adrenal exhaustion? allergic reactions? Thank you!!!!

[cms16]

I believe as u do that hormones have much to do with these pvc's and pac's as well. I am 44 and aside from a constant occurrance of 6 weeks about 12 years ago, I have been able to ward them off with some inderal. Now last fall I had an 8 week occurrance and 6 months feeling okay now we are up tp 6  weeks again. My DR told me it gets worse as we head to menopause but I am still very regular. What happens when menopause really sets in? MY DR also told me that some people get relief after menopause when the hormones calm down. Of cours he says not to worry but as we all know that is very hard to do at least for me. Can that be why they are increasing in frequency and duration...hormonal changes that I don't physically see just yet? Help?

[dquenzer]

I just want to say that I am a success story when it comes to ablations.  I suffered huge number of PAC's per day that eventually turned into AFIB.  It was so bad I could hardly sleep in the morning or if I woke up at night. I finally had the ablation 1.5 years ago, and it has been wonderful

Your right, you don't hear about the success stories.  Bad news gets spread much easier.

My EP doctor also checked out PVC foci.  I do suffer from a PVC once in awhile, but he couldn't detect any specific foci, so apparently he does PVC ablations.  

Don't worry about the procedure under a good doctor.  Of course no procedure is without risk, but I really wish I would have done it sooner than later.  I would have saved three years of irritation with AFIB.  However I do think a second opinion is beneficial.

[megz21]

Che-kier

I am so sorry to hear about the tough time you are going through with these PVCs. I have only had them for about 7 months but I find that they tend to differ in form. Have you had both PVCs and PACs??  If so, which ones do you find more distressing?

It seems to me that they are different for everyone. I find that deep breathing through the abdomen as opposed to the lungs sometimes helps. I was on atenol for a while which did nothing and was then on a very powerful drug called tambocor (it helped immensely, but had shocking side effects!) Within the past few weeks the palps have been quite bad and so I was thinking about going on the atenol again. Have you tried this drug? It can help many people with PVCs I believe.

Thanks again for your comments. It makes me feel so much beter to know that I'm not the only one suffering.

PS - have you found that any natural remedies, such as vitamins and minerals have helped? I heard magnesium can. By the way if anyone has any more advice about how they deal with the PVCs please let me know. Thankyou guys.

[KAD]

Sorry to hear of your problems and hope they find a resolution soon.  I have had 3 ablations for inappropriate sinus tach.  They are not incredibly successful.  I ended up with a pacemaker at 27 b/c it is difficult and risky to ablate on the sinus node and usually unsuccessful.  Unfortunately, doing nothing about the rapid heart rate was not an option due to the long term effects on the heart(enlarged heart).  I prefer the pacemaker than going into heart failure at 30 years old.  I'm not sure of the success rate of pvc ablations, but I would make darn sure that whatever EP doc does it has lots of experience with this particular kind of ablation.  Good luck and take care!

[che-kier]

Thanks so mush for support and comments.
Yes have an an EP who is apparently ablates PVC's.  I just have been suprised in my research via the net that I mostly see ablation procedures for tach.
The EP wants to do an initial exploratory mission that can be several hours long and I feel I am so burned out already it seems nearly impossible to muster up the courage for a procedure that will likely lead to another. I rarely see feedabck with positve results from ablations on this forum.  Maybe because people who feel well don't bother writing in?

[Momto3]

I have had two very successful ablations for pvcs (I was multifocal, so I had more than one procedure).

I can empathize with what you are going through....they can definitely get the best of you!!  

As for the possibility of hormonal involvement....I vote YES!  My pvcs were very prevalent during and post pregnancy, and then again in my late 30's and early 40's suggestive of pre-menopausal hormone changes.  

I am not a doctor, just a former sufferer, but in my opinion, I don't thing it is "years of stress catching up."  

Do you have an EP?  Is he/she experienced in pvc ablation (a must)?  Hope you find relief soon.


Tickertock,

Are you back home?  I was thinking about all of you when those hurricaines were whirling around the Atlantic again!  Hope all is well.  How did you make out with your doctor appointment?