Any Doctors out there who are also sufferers?

[acjviolin]

By chance, are there any medical doctors out there who are also sufferers of A-fib, SVT, or who have PVCs, etc?  Please respond if you think sharing your experiences would be beneficial.  I'm wondering if you may have better advice on coping with this stuff than the average person.  Thanks, in advance.

[acjviolin]

Girls, I've been out of town on vacation for over a week.  Sorry that I didn't thank you all for your very helpful responses prior to leaving!  Knowing that other people have the same weird, but specific symptoms that I do really comforts me (although I wish that none of us had this...).  It was a very happy Easter, Connie,  thanks!

[SillyHeart]

My doctor has SVT.  She hasn't had an ablation and doesn't seem concerned by her SVT.  She lives an active life.

Poor breathing screws up my rhythm too.  So difficult to correct it, especially once you start paying attention to it.

[Momto3]

Oh man!  I've been caught in that overbreathing pattern!!  I can so sympathize with you! The last time I remember it being so bad was the year before my ablations.  I think I had it for 3-4 months...thought I was gonna go crazy!  It was awful.  Fortunately, I did not hyperventilate.  The only peace I had each day was when I was sleeping (that's how I was pretty sure it was anxiety).  I'm not really sure if the overbreathing caused me to have more PVCs, but I don't think so.  At that time, I was pretty much in constant arrythmia so it's hard to know for sure.  However, it seems to make sense that your heart would get pretty irritated from the oxygen loss/overload (not sure which).  

If I ever get back into that pattern (lasting more than a day or so), I'll try to take notice on the PVC's

Happy Easter!
connie

[acjviolin]

Thanks for the response!  I know you're thankful for her depth of understanding!  While I've got you, I want to ask you if you've noticed an increase in your PVCs while "overbreathing".  I battle anxiety and usually "overbreath" to the point of hyperventilating at times.  Sometimes it takes me weeks to get out of such a poor breathing pattern!  

[Momto3]

Hi acjviolin,

I'm not a doctor, but my EP has PVCs.  It helped a lot when I was trying to explain what was going on.  She knew exactly what I was talking about.

Great question!