PVCs and Anxiety after Ablation

[sas12358]

Hi everyone
I had an ablation 8 weeks ago for wpw syndrome, i was cured from the wpw however now i am left with PVCs.
They are doing my head in and i am finding it hard to cope with them, i wont leave my house for fear of dropping dead, my partner has had enough of hearing about it and i just dont know what to do anymore...
I get them in bigeminy, couplets and trigeminy, it sends me into a panic attack. I have had ECG, bloods and ep study all say nothing to worry about. im having a treadmill test on monday to see if anything else can be found. I just am wondering am i going mad??? please any advice would be much appreciated sarah x

[sas12358]

thank you for  you responces, cindy what did you have an ablation for?? i am really hoping that it is just an ablation irritation and that my heart will calm down, did you get a lot of extra beats too then??
i find them so hard to deal with, every morning i think here we go again another day of panic and worry..
its great to here that you are now free from the problems and able to live your life, im hoping for that xx

[cindy707]

At 8 weeks post ablation you still have a little while to go sas....it could realistically take up to six months for all of the symtoms to disappear.  I know when i had mine my heart calmed down at the 4 month mark however those first four months were a little tough.  My doc put me on a low dose of antenolol to give me a little jump start on keeping things calm for me.  However this was after the 3 E.R, visits i had one resulting in being chemically converted.  With ablations i think the key word if possible is patience but it is great that your doc is being so pro active with you.  What i did find out was that as each day passed it got a little better and a little better until that day came and i no longer felt my heart...whew what a relief it was for me....now four years later i love my life and like everyone else hope it holds...good luck sas and don't panic yet...wayyyy too soon at eight weeks....

[Mom2four85]

sarah; no matter how difficult our lives may seem there are bound to be others who are far worse off than we are; while I'm dealing with difficult things there are so many others in the heart disease community whose health is far worse than mine - what I've found helpful is sharing with others in communities this and then I see just how much better I have it than some others  =)  helping others deal and cope with things also helps

I whine complain and have bad days but it's how we cope with those days and deal with what is going on that sets us apart; don't dwell on things too much or the bad feelings & thoughts creep in.  Part of that's is the grieving process - we've lost part of our lives to a medical problem - be mad, sad, glad, fearful whatever you feel at that time and know it's ok .

I think if you had something wrong it would probably have shown up in one of the ablations; but I'm not a doctor :P and I don' know anything about WPW.  Hopefully your stress test will yield some answers and give you some relief and peace of mind.  Give yourself some time to get over the ablation and see how you feel in a few weeks or months.

Pvc's are not easy to deal with :(  that's for sure - my heart failure has only progressed and one of the dr's here suggested it was due to my pacemaker pacing me too much with the problems I've had with it.

take care,
Lisa

[sas12358]

thank you for your encouragement...i feel for you, you have a lot more thanme going odd with your life, and yet im moaning about mine...
would they have found anything bad on my ep study?? i have had 4 ablations in total. i have my stress test on monday so will have to see outcome of that.
will your heart failure get better?
bet it was lovely to see your husband and kids having fun, im from england and my parents took me to disney when i was younger, it was great.
im going to have to try and take a hold of my life and get on with thing or i think i will just fade away into the background...
sarah

[Mom2four85]

I'm 43, but they found my problem when I was 42 - I have 4 children; 2 grown and 2 younger ones.  No test showed any clue that I had anything dangerous, but my amount of pvc's were such they said I would develop cardiomyopathy from them and could go into heart failure, which I did and was confirmed via cardiac cath after my ablation.

I can't say I've ever worried per say about dropping dead; just what would my family do if something did happen to me - or worse become an invalid and have to rely on everyone for everything.  

I had complications during my ablation and found out I have a malignant form of arrythmia's - (it's all in my journal if you want to read about it) I have polymorphic VT; which was kind of scarey to think to think I had something so dangerous and I just beebopped along and acted like nothing was wrong lol walked/ran and completely ignored symptoms that I shouldn't have.

I've never been too much of a worrier, but I have a safety net now with an ICD - that's a whole nother story - lead displacement since I had it implanted, so it's never worked right and it "may" not work at all if needed :P and I'll have to have major heart surgery to have the entire thing removed soon, but I have no other choice but to make it - my family depends on me.

When I had my stress test in July 2009, I had major problems - my HR shot up right away, VT started and I had runs of couplets/triplets - shortness of breath and nauseated - they stopped the test at 4min 55sec due to this and I passed out and had triplets in recovery.  I went from walking/running; a full daily schedule; 4 kids, husband family 2 bussinesses - to barely able to move; and went through some depression - I tried Lexapro for a month but found it didn't do much for me so I just waited until I felt better to push myself.  Don't be afraid to try an SSRI if you feel you need to.

I have good & bad days; days when my feet are swelled to where I can't walk, my legs hurt so bad I cry like a baby which is embarassing; I pass out and really embarass myself or my chest is pounding like mad and I think - IS this it?  But then there are those good days that I cherish that help me through it - days like last week where I sat and watch my kids and husband giggle together at Disney =)

Only you can decide how to live each day, you can let these monsters defeat you or you can give it all you can and not let them bother you and try to conquer your fear & anxiety.  Listen to that inner voice we all have and live today like it's your last.

[sas12358]

Hi Lisa
Thanx for your reply, how old are you?? i have 3 kids and i worry everyday about dropping dead, think thats why i have so much anxiety.
i have hours with no pvcs then hours with big or trieminy, it feels horrid. i had an event monitor recently and ep said i have lots going on even couplets but go and live your life you will be fine!!!
i only had my ablation 8 weeks ago so i thought maybe my heart is still bit irritated and my anxiety is just adding to the problem. did you not worry about your VT when running and that??
How r u doing now?
i never had pvcs very often before my ablation for wpw. Im taking flecanide 50mg twice day which my ep has just told me to increase to 100mg twice a day, and i take bisoparol 2.5 mg a day.
the minute i open my eyes in a morning i know the beats are there and it depresses me, i also have night time panic attacks too
tell ya im a nervous wreck and i dont know how to break the cycle.
thanx for listening xxx

[Mom2four85]

if you're getting 10,000+ per day, did your dr advise you to take a beta block or BB to see if it would help alleviate some of the pvc's and symptoms? Some of us do well on bb's while others like me can't tolerate them, I've only found Inderal that works for me without major side effects

pvc's can be scarey; they make us feel like we're going to drop dead at any moment from them 1,000 or 50,000 they're no fun to deal with - you need to find out where yours are originating; that is the key as to benign or not and if you have any LV dysfunction, CM or anything else going on with your heart

as long as you're not symptomatic, a BB might do very well for you and hopefully they won't find any structural damage to your heart; however if you start having 15 -20% of your total daily heartbeats your doctor may look at other options - normally that would be an ablation, but you just had one so I'm not sure if they would look at that option so soon

ask your dr about exercise - I had 50,000+ pvc's daily, symptoms such as fainting, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pain; VT and heart problems and I walked and ran quite a bit up until I had my ablation last year - then they put me on a strict no exertion limitation due to my problems - exercise may actually help; as it does with many pvc sufferers - but ask your dr first

it may be helpful to keep a journal of episodes and see if you can find a pattern to things going on daily and if you can pinpoint any triggers you're having - it may just be that your heart has not had a chance to heal from your ablation and it's exciteable right now; mine did that - I developed PAC's after surgery which had not been there before - slowly over 4 -5 months my pvc's returned though.

[sas12358]

My doctor has sent me to see a psychiatrist and my appointment is tomorrow, i think im getting about 10000+ pvcs a day, but im scared to walk or exercise so if i did that i would prob have more.
thank you for your advice and i think i do need to calm down, im so anxious all the time.
how do you you get through the day when they are so bad?? im scared to leave the house, im only 30, just qualified as a nurse and got the job i love, but now been off work for 10 weeks due to these issues.. im just so low..

[yarrow]

Every few years, I suddenly have bouts of close to 5000 unifocal PVCs per day, and they are always accompanied by panic attacks.  To tell the truth, I cannot be sure which is the chicken and which the egg here, but the end result is the same.  My panic and anxiety grow worse at the same time I become more and more aware of the ectopic beats, which in their turn become more frequent.

So, I fool around for a couple of months, trying to will myself out of this state, and then finally take the prescription I was given years ago for just this situation.  It's Zoloft, the SSRI my shrink and I have found to work the best for me.

Within a week, the panic begins to quiet down, and by three weeks--get this!--the sound of the pvcs, and my awareness of them, fades.  And as that happens--who could have guessed--the actual frequency of the ectopic beats diminishes to virtually nothing.  On the advice of my shrink, I stay on the Zoloft for a number of months.  He likens it to giving a hyperactive car alarm a chance to cool off and get re-set.

If you're like many of us, including me, the thought of needing psych meds is distasteful.  But I can assure you that there are situations with PVCs when this kind of medication is a blessing and it gives you your life back.

Call your doctor, tell him you have having a lot of trouble with panic and need help.  In the short term, medications like Lorazepam will give you some calm, but they only last a few hours.   From what I have read here, it takes a few months for the heart to quiet down after an ablation, so I would very much recommend one of the antidepressants called SSRIs.  Some of these are more calming than others, so it would be best if your doc referred you to a psychiatrist, because they specialize in this kind of thing.