Aa
What do I call it?
Having an arrhythmia like mine with PSVTs and frequent PACs and PVCs in singles and couplets is not considered heart disease if you have a healthy heart, right? My cardiologist said these palpitations are a nuisance. If they are not heart disease then what are they, a heart complication? I take a beta blocker now.
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Thanks. This info is invaluable! You are all rock stars in my book!
You hit the nail on the head, ireneo! A lot of people call ablations surgeries, I see that all the time on here. When my daughter had her first ablation, it literally was an open heart surgery. She was in the hospital for 10 days. They have come so far since then; she probably had 5-6 EP Studies and abltions done after that and they were all done in the cath lab! What a difference!!
We were going for some extra life insurance and heart health came up. Have I even had any heart problems or surgeries? Well, ablations are not "surgeries", just procedures. And although my heart beats funny at times, it's really just fine. But the insurance person had a hard time believing that any arrhythmia can be benign. Not sure what they thought but we got the insurance.
In addition, I would like to add....be careful what you call it and in front of who. I used to call it an electrophysiologic disorder. Thought that was good. Then one day I tried to get life insurance.......now I only call it that...HERE!!!! lol
Thanks for the advice. It is reassuring to know your heart can be healthy but out of kilter at the same time. Things are looking up.
My heart needed some tuning up. It is not a clunker yet! The medicine has helped.
Thanks. The headache metaphor does help me understand it. This is a heart condition and it comes and goes. It does so like a gnarly stray dog. It can be tamed. The Atenolol is really helping. He increased it to 12.5 twice a day.
You would probably refer to is as an arrhythmia or a heart condition. Heart disease is a whole different story.
You said it, you have an arrhythmia. A problem with your heart's electrical signal.
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Heart disease is defined as heart muscle disease, heart infections, diseases (calcified) coronary arteries, valve diseases and heart failure.
Palpitations are often (though not always) caused by things outside the heart, like stress, stimulants, anxiety, non cardiac diseases (fever, hyperthyroids, etc) and such factors aren't cardiac related though they cause symptoms though that organ.
For example, you wouldn't say that headache caused by tense muscles is a head or brain disease.
It seems cardiologists see your heart function objectively, but they often don't pay attention to our subjective symptoms which may be terrible.