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What type of cardiomyopathy do I have?

cardiac cath. revealed non obstructive CAD. moderate CAD, mild to moderate cardiomyopathy, EF35-40%, chronic a-fib with very low ventricular response, VVIR pacemaker installed , Synthroid75mcg, Lanoxin 0.25mg daily and 0.375 mon, Wed, Fri, Enalapril2.5 mg twice daily, Atenolol 12.5mg twice daily and Coumadin 5mg daily and 7.5 on Sundays. echocardiogram dimensions Aortic root 37mm, aortic valve opening19mm, left atrium 44mm, LV end diastolic dimention 48mm, end systolic dimension 31mm, Septal thickness 9mm, posterior wall thickness 10mm. The overall impressio was normal left ventricular size, function,regional wall motion, the ejection fraction lower limits of normal, approx 55%, left atrium is mildly dilated,the aortic root, right heart chamber are not dilated, aortic sclerosis with no stenosis in any of the four valves seen, there is moderate 2+mitral insufficiency, there is moderate 2+ tricuspid insufficiency, mild to moderate1-2+ pulmonic insufficiency. My present Cardiologist says I have Primary Cardiomyopathy. Heavy drinker for thirty years and would tend to believe that my condition could more properly be discribed as  Alcoholic Cardiomyopathy. I also remember the surgeon who performed the heart cath commenting on an enlarged septum! Is a reading of Septal thickness 9mm considered enlarged? and if so would my condition be better described as hypertrophic. I am very confused. Please help. Thank You~~~~Mark
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Avatar universal
Dear Mark,
Cardiomyopathy is defined as a dysfunction of the cardiac muscle.  It can be due secondary to coronary artery blockages (most common), valvular disease, genetic (hypertrophic), viruses, heavy alcohol use over many years, pregnancy, rapid heart rates (as may sometimes be seen with afib), vitamin deficiencies, infections, thyroid disorders and a variety of more rare causes. If it is uncertain what the cause is (or if all known causes have been excluded) it may be called idiopathic or primary cardiomyopathy.  

I guess the first thing in your case would be to establish that you do indeed have cardiomyopathy.  Persons with an ejection fraction (EF) of 55% are not generally considered to have a cardiomyopathy although I suppose if there are regional wall motion abnormalities one could consider this a regional cardiomyopathy. I would probably check a MUGA scan or repeat echo to try to better establish the true EF.  Next I would treat the known possible causes of cardiomyopathy that you have (coronary disease, alcohol abuse, afib).  Septal thickness of 9mm is not considered enlarged.
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Avatar universal
You go Sam! I agree completely.

And I don't think wilson could come up with a common sense concluding line because the original author couldn't either.
(Dennis Miller or George Carlin)

Pall/katnevada
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Avatar universal
Threads are threads.  They take you where they will.  No power on earth can stop their meandering ways.  Except of course, the thread master.

PACs, at the risk of sending this thread back onto the main drag,
I have PACs showing up at someting like 1000-2000 per day (bad days).  I exercise, play sports, and don't let it get in the way.
PAC production certainly varies a great deal, so one is occassionally lured into thinking they are abating and maybe will disappear, only to discover that for "no reason at all" they're back.  I believe it's a lifetime relationship, and the sooner you learn to deal with these "benign" buggers, the better off you will be.



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Avatar universal
Thank you Sam, for your friendly advice!
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Avatar universal
At least you are authentically funny. Rambling squirrels on prozac. Too cute.
Katnevada/pall
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Avatar universal
Hoi Sam,

This is the Heart-Forum indeed.
And you know what?
When someones anger is managed, the palpitations/PACs/PVCs will probably lessen, now isn't that what want?
We already eat the tons of fruit YOU recommended!!
So come on give us some space and...SMILE!!

***IANNA***
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Avatar universal
Why don't you and wilson exchange addresses?  You can e-mail each other on the meaning of life or what 'is' is.  This forum was never intended for your political-religious-philosophical  ramblings.  However, medhelp does offer a mental health forum.  You and wilson should get your Prozac  prescriptions refilled and visit that forum.  I think you will be very happy  with the  like-minded squirrels there.  Just the facts, ma'am.
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Avatar universal
I wish there was someone who could delete or lock posts like these as they don't belong on this forum.
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Avatar universal
Hello Cat,

Try searching through the Forum's Archives to look for an answer to your problem with thousands of PVCs a day.(nasty things!)
Like Terrence says, there are a lot of people with the same problem there, and maybe you'll find what you are looking for.

Good luck! ***IANNA***
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Avatar universal
Oh Wilson, don't provoke me!
You are an intelligent man.
I am NOT talking about 'a' god or 'a' believe-system.
You know what I mean!  

***IANNA***

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Avatar universal
Ok Ok just tell me if any of you have suffered with thousands not your measly one or two or 100 or 200 but thousands? cat1
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Avatar universal
Yes, heaven forbid you should actually get an answer to your question here with all this going on. I am of the measly 100-200 per day persuasion, but I do know of people who have thousands a day and are not considered to be at risk. I know a man who has approx 10,000 per day and lives his life normally and even exercises every day. I hope you get a first hand answer to your question.
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Avatar universal
Dear Wilson,

Well well, do you know that you are a very spiritual person?

Love ***IANNA***
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Avatar universal
I thought this was the HEART forum.  When did it become an anger-management forum?  Keep your political-religious **** to yourself or post it some place where it will be appreciated.  You need to calm down before you have a PAC attack.  By the way, your doc is right----you need a day job.
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Avatar universal
Bravo.  (You should charge something for this rant).
I hope the powers-that-be leave your post alone.

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Avatar universal
The Death of Common Sense

You know, lately I find myself recurringly gripped by an overwhelming desire to smack our entire country upside its collective head.

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but common sense in this country isn't just dead, it's been cremated and Woody Harrelson is smoking his ashes in his lucky skull bong. There is so little common sense today that Thomas Paine is spinning over in his grave so rapidly that they are thinking of hooking him up to a turbine to light up the Vegas strip.

You can't get to your office in the morning without colliding with some idiot who is trying to spawn upstream onto the elevator while everyone else is trying to get off.

You can't get in your car and not run into another idiot who pulls into the gas station with his fuel tank on the wrong side and then has to get instructions from a NASA team at Houston Control to figure out how to maneuver his car so that the tank is on the correct side. And you can't open a paper without reading about a mondo idiot who gets hurt or killed at a railroad crossing because they had to try and beat the train to get home in time to watch Charlene Tilton's salute to porcelain clowns on QVC.

Now, what the **** has happened to us? A chalk outline is slowly being drawn around common sense and most Americans can't even identify the victim. We've gone from a nation of practical-minded, can-do Johnny-Get-Your-Guns and Rosie the Riveters to a bunch of sniveling crybabies who can't take it on the chin without running whining to our lawyers.

Christ, we're so bogged down in procedure, we make Radar O'Reilly look like Henry David Thoreau. You coulple that with a Blanche DuBois-like denial of personal responsibility for the **** in our lives, and it's no wonder we're in a malasie that makes a bout of Epstein-Barr seem like a Laker Girl doing the Watusi after four triple lattes with a Dexatrim chaser.

You know, there's 800,000 lawyers in our country, and many of their livelihoods depend on the fact that we have got no common sense. My theory is that intelligence, like every other resource on this planet, has a finite amount. And as the population increases, the intelligence resource is being stretched thinner than the elastic in Marge Schott's G-string.

For instance, some old lady burns herself on a cup of coffee at McDonald's ans sues for three million dollars because it's not her fault. And she wins. She wins! We have trouble convicting people who actually confess to murder, but this woman is able to take three mil off of McDonald's? If the judge had any common sense, the trial should have gone like "Will the plaintiff please rise? Yeah, it is your fault. You're stupid. Coffee is supposed to be hot. Why didn't you blow on it before you chugged it down like a pledge having his first beer? Get our of my courtroom, you stupid, stupid woman and take your pin-striped parasite lawyer with you. Next case."

Common sense has been defined as the quality of judgment necessary to know the simplest of truths. Well, nowadays simple truths are sighted about as often as Mary Hart on Crossfire.

In the last twenty years we seem to have completely lost the ability to obey the natural laws around us. We no longer recognize things that are shockingly wrong anymore. We can't tell up from down, right from left, absolutely one hundred percent not guilty from double-murdering scumbag guilty. And we are getting stupider. Are we stupid or were we always this stupid?

I watch these TV evangelists on late-night cable channel 66 and see the stadium full of people giving hard-earned money away to some chrome-head, sweat-covered, barking con man dangling eternal salvation in front of these poor bastards like a leash in front of a chihuahua with one kidney.

Well, I'm just shocked at our lack of our common sense. Clearly, this crook couldn't be more full of **** if he were a Porta Potti at the Lollapalooza festival.

Now, to many people the government is the main foundry of not-know-how, turning the raw ore sent to it by votes and tax dollars into cold-rolled sheets of incompetence, which are then used in every aspect of our societal infrastructure. Reports on reports of subcommittees of commissions create a sea of paper that could float Rush Limbaugh's butter dish. All in all, practicality has about as much chance of being served by the federal government as a loud Texan does by a French waiter.

Folks, we don't need more government, we don't need more colleges; we need more schools that teach common sense. We don't need any more Einsteins who can tell you the principle of microwave cooking but can't figure out how to plug one in. I've always said, "Give someone a fish and they'll eat for a day, teach someone not to run a bass lure through their testicle and they will be able to fish for the rest of their life."

Where does common sense come from? It's slapped into the back of your head by your mother when you try and touch the hot stove. It's the Oldsmobile crest branded onto your forehead for all of eternity beacuse you didn't want the seat belt to wrinkle your new shirt. Common sense is what gores you in the *** in Pamplona when you dress up like Topo Gigio and run in front of the bulls down a street that's narrower than Newt Gingrich's mind.

And most important, common sense is admitting when you don't have a big closer. I don't have a big closer.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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Avatar universal
Dear wilson,

You're a nice guy, at heart.
I really think so.
You just want a little bit of attention every now and then.
That's ok.
But upsetting people will not give you the attention and respect you so much need.
So relax and give them some space.
Accept them as they come, and they will accept you as you are.
We are all different.
We react differently.
That is what makes us so interesting.
We learn from each other.
Now, imagine we were all the same and react the same, that would be boring!!!
A few months ago I awoke, laid still and 'heard' this:
LOVE ALL,
BE GOOD,
FORGIVE,
THAT's IT.....
I immidiately wrote it down and it is hanging on the wall above my desk, cause I think that this is what life is all about.

Love and Peace my friend, ***IANNA***

By the way, who is 'OPRAH'??(sorry wilson, that was not nice)




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Avatar universal
Wilson,

I posted on this forum on several occasions about how I deal with my pacs/pvcs and it is basically the same way you do. I take a magnesium potassium asportate supplement along with an occasional axid and Maalox as needed. The results have been very good.I didn't know anyone else tried the same method but am glad to see that it works for someone else.
dave
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Avatar universal
Hello Arthur,

Yes, the message I send you at the PVC-support-group at Yahoo of course never got there, cause I forgot to sign in.
Anyway I shall probably not go there again.
All that GIRL-POWER, WOW!!
Telling people what they need!!
The reactions you got and the judging; too much for me!
Don't like that. I know what I need for myself.
Your messages have been a GREAT HELP to ME. So....thank you.
Next week I'll see my heart-specialist; I'll ask him about the quivering.
We will be in touch, bey  ***IANNA*** ;-)



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Avatar universal
Hi,
If someone has expierenced thousands of pacs and pvcs daily please tell me? It is the worst possible feeling on earth very debilitating! Just one question if a person does have thousands a day wouldnt there definitly be something wrong with them?
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Avatar universal
You are describing the exact internal vibrations I experience.
As I understand it, these may be coming from foci themselves (probably located in the pulmonary vein connections to the back of the heart).  Several people have commented that they experience this very uneasy sensation.

Early on, when my PACs first started, I did notice a nervous feeling centered in my chest, but did not think much about it.
Typically, it appears to present itself right after sudden exertion, sudden excitement (even upon waking from a vivd dream).
My EP and others I have communicated with, suggest it may be that the tiny signals from the foci are being amplified by cross talk with the epicardial nervous system (nerves surrounding the heart). Typically, when those internal vibes are going full strength, it's very uncomfortable and some PACs begin to show up.
The explanation here may be that the foci may belong to a class referred to as "hidden"...ie, they have a difficult time launching "skips" because they are not located in the best position to do so.  Do you also notice your skips are somewhat controlled by your body position?  In my case, when lying down, they are almost not present (even when the internal vibes are going)...if those vibes are particularly strong, some PACs do get through.

I have noticed that when one of these "attacks" is going, they seem to last about 5-15 minutes...just coincidentally about the same as the half-life of freshly released adrenaline.  So, my pet theory is that the adrenaline released (with stress, sudden movement, etc) kicks up the foci, which in turn, gets some of their "noise" to show up as PACs.  We apparently belong to the chosen few who have the ability to notice the foci.

Over the period of time I have had PACs (about 2.6 years), this internal vibration has changed somewhat.  It went from very distinct attacks (5-10 minutes) that had a thumping frequency of about 150-200 bpm, to the present, where the attacks don't seem to be quite as intense or as often, and the thumping occurs at about 200-300 bpm.  I have been exercising my head off throughout this peroid, and have also noted that after exercising the vibes change their character to a "buzzing" sensation...meaning that they are vibrating at an incredible rate...the good news is that when they are like that, there are no PACs...apparently, when the foci fire at that rate their signals cannot interfere with the normal heart rhythm.

I have tried taking the anti-histamine, benadryl, at night in an attempt to see if I could get a more restful sleep...mixed results...the theory here was that benadryl has a side effect of inhibiting cholinergic signalling between nerve cells...I was hoping that was the signalling that was behind the cross-talk. At the present, I am simply learning how to keep calm when these attacks come, and find that they are less frequent and do go away within 5-15 minutes...as long as I don't get anxious.

I hope this list of experiences helps you.  If I ever find something that works, I'll be sure to post it.

-Arthur


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Avatar universal
P.S. I speak only for myself. My opions.
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Avatar universal
Mr. Wilson,
You really are an egomaniacal buffoon. You think you know everything about PVC/PAC. You think you know more than the doctors, the scientist, and the researchers. If you know so much why don't you publish a paper. A book. A case study.

The people at PVC forum are certainly not all "Aunt Bee" types, who are interested in "Oprah's" opinion. Speaking for myself, I am more the "Bridgett Jones" type.  (and I am sure you have no clue who that is)

In addition, exactly what "type" are you. The type that puts all people into one catagory (aunt bee) because they get tired of hearing your drivel. The "the whole world is wrong, I am right" type.

As for "Martyrs", I do not think anyone here is a "willing victim", or feel that they are "suffering for a cause". No one likes this condition. (as you imply with your statement)(I know that I,for one, hate it) We are here for each other to share, to support, to teach, to learn,  and to be compassionate. (don't know that word? Look it up.)


And, yes we do want to know how to get rid of them. Yes, we do want to know what they are, or we would not have a group. Do you know how to get rid of them? If you know how to get rid of them why don't you tell us all. If you know what causes them, why don't you share that information. Hey, you'd be rich and famous. Even the scientific community doesn't know exactly WHY or HOW. Please, do tell. The whole of the medical and scientific field is on edge waiting for you, Mr. Wilson, to tell us all about it.

And while you are pointing your finger saying "they are not happy unless they are unhappy." I would like you to note that while you are pointing that one finger at someone else, there are three finger pointing back at yourself. (So take a look at those other three fingers...YOU are unhappy.)

You think you are head and shoulder above us all, but you are the one who has been "ostracized" by every heart group on the internet-with the exception of this forum. (you couldn't even get people to stay in your group)
Don't you wonder why? It isn't EVERYBODY else. It is YOU. You, to put it simply, (if you can lower yourself to simplicity) do not play well with others.
Have a lovely day.
Kat
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Avatar universal
Hello Arthur,
I browsed through the archives, and found a message from an Arthur the date 2-6-2002, about internal quivering of the heart.
(Is it the heart that quivers, or the muscles around the heart?)
Is that you, Arthur, who posted so many messages on the page about PVCs and PACs?
In any case, I have(now a couple of months) the same feeling of an internal vibration, while the heart is beating normally or somewhat faster and harder.
I find it very disturbing and it makes me nervous.
It is like when your hands are trembling with fear or from the cold, only this is the heart-area.
It often happens when I have been very busy or when I have had a lot of stress.(I am easely stressed out)Have been all my life. Especially at night, when I lay down in my bed, it is very disturbing; I wake up a lot of times with this quivering feeling, palpitations and PVCs.
Do you know more about them now, Arthur?
And what do you do to make it disappear?
I find beta-blockers do not work for me, they slow down my heartrate to 58-64 while I normally have a rate of 80-85.
The slow heartbeat provokes PVCs and makes me very tired.
Valium does not work, the only thing that helps me to sleep is a simple sleeping-pill. Then day by day the vibration lessened.
Oh well, if you have any advice, please answer!
Or maybe anyone else??
Greetings from ***IANNA*** (I live in the Netherlands) Bey, Bey!

  
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