Is this NSVT?

[jondsam]

I am a long term suffer of PAC\PVC's.  Never have the developed into anything more than unifocal PVC's.

Then today I was checking my pulse (which i do a lot cause im paranoid) and this happend while my heart rate was resting at 60bpm.

beat----beat----beat-beat----beatbeatbeatbeatbeat------beat------beat-----beat

So I felt a regular old PVC, you know when you can feel the extra beat happen, and instead of the usual pause, my heart went beatbeatbeatbeatbeat really fast and then started beating normal again.  Is that NSVT?

[SeanP03]

I'm pretty positive there's no "benign" for of VT unless you count non-sustained ventricular tachycardia, which is the same as regular old VT except it auto-corrects before 30 seconds (i.e. your just lucky). VT comes in 2 "flavors" if you will monomorphic, and polymorphic VT. The most common cause of monomorphic VT episodes is scar tissue from previous MI's. Polymorphic VT most commonly caused by "muscle" issues with the ventricles repolarizing, if caught on an ECG  you'd see a prolonged QT segment. and commonly caused by drug toxicity, electrolyte issues or on occasion ischaemia. and then there's pulse-less VT and as it suggests, no dice. (during a rotation I had to work on a guy with pulse-less VT, sad day).   both VT and VF are "shockable" rhythms because if uncorrected can destroy perfusion to the brain (due to minimal cardiac output...just look at an ECG strip pf each)  causing irreversible damage. so are any "safe or benign" I'm going with a big negative, due to the squiggle EKG meaning barely any blood is leaving the heart due to ultra fast contraction of ventricles before blood can fill them....no blood, no brain, no brain...you get the point.

[itdood]

coulda been NSVT or maybe a SVT.  Hard to tell those based on feelings without catching it on an EKG.    I had that happen once, even went for a consult to an EP.  He couldn't give me an answer and it became a wait-and-see thing.  I ended up deciding to wait to see if it got worse and if it did I was going to get on an event monitor.  This was last October.

[is_something_wrong]

Hello,

I know we disagree a bit in some of our replies. Anyway, it seems like you suffer quite heavy from anxiety over PVCs, and I'll try to give you a useful answer.

First of all, you cannot be completely sure you are feeling a PVC while having skipped or double beats. I know you are monitoring this, but it's really not easy to see the difference between some PACs and PVCs.

Second, if you feel a "run" it's definitely more common that your run is supraventricular (SVT or brief sinus tachycardia) than VT.

Third: I believe VT is the most anxiety creating phenomenon among us "cardiac neurotics". The reason is - all we read about is how VT can degrade to Vfib and good night.What we need to know, though, is that VT can both be a benign phenomenon and life threatening, all depends on the cause and mechanisms behind it.

The most serious cases of VT are the polymorphic ones. They may occur if your heart depolarizes while some parts if it are unable to conduct impulses, in addition to a disorder making your heart repolarize slower, increasing this effect. As a result, circular conductions occur many places in the ventricles, creating a polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, that is, actually, an intermediate between V-tach and V-fib. The most common one has the strange French name Torsades de Pointes (twisted points), because of it's very characteristic look on EKG, with fluctuating QRS complexes.

Other possibly serious cases of VT are those created by reentry (as described above) but only by one spot, because the heart is damaged by a MI or other structural disease. Electricity is lead through the damaged spot so slow, that when it gets through, rest of the heart is able to conduct again, creating this loop. This can be named ventricular reentry tachycardia and is not benign.

The third case of VT, more common in younger people with healthy hearts, is the "increased automaticity VT" caused by some overactive pacemaking cells in the ventricle. It's as easy as this: Instead of firing one PVC, it decides to fire three, or seven, or nine in a few seconds. In absence of structural heart disease, this condition does not increase your risk of cardiac death.

But of course, when we're reading stuff on the internet, we always catch the dangerous ones, and this is creating anxiety..

[SeanP03]

no problem I had a PVC spike my HR just above 200bpm for more than 3mins once, I really thought it was curtains for ol sean, freaked the hell out of me. I recently just made a post mybe you could shed some insight on.

[jondsam]

Thanks for the answer.  It only lasted maybe 10 seconds and then stopped.  Really weird to fell a PVC and the beatbeatbeat really fast and then back to normal.  Im gunna ask the doctor for the 30day event monitor.  Thanks!