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Palpitations
Hi.I am 55 year old female.i have been suffering from palpitations for many years.I had a 3 week holter monitor done.It shows many pvc's,pac's and two events my heart doctor described as svt had a normal stress test about a year ago. have been on metropropol er 25mg once a day and it doesnt seem to be helping anymore.I have tryed rythmol but discontinued because of stabbing headaches.My doctor suggests a hospital stay to try sotalol since i seem to not be tolerating the other meds.He also has suggested a oblation.my question is i know there are many other meds i could try,what other ones would be helpful to try before i commit to an oblation?i am so very sick of these constant palpitaions! Thank you.
I use to suffer with a lot of palpations also.. I saw a electrophysiologist suggested that I have a cardiac ablation.. I was so tired of the pvc's I went through with the ablation.And I am so glad I did.I was told that it is not always 100% but it sure was worth it!!! It is no
way like before.. Still have some pvc's cause they were not able to zap all due to the location of some.... I completely understand what you are going through.... My prayers are with you.
way like before.. Still have some pvc's cause they were not able to zap all due to the location of some.... I completely understand what you are going through.... My prayers are with you.
I use to suffer with a lot of palpations also.. I saw a electrophysiologist suggested that I have a cardiac ablation.. I was so tired of the pvc's I went through with the ablation and so glad I did.I was told that it is not always 100% but if sure was worth it!!! It is now way like before.. Still have some pvc's cause they were not able to zap all due to the location of some.... I completely understand what you are going through.... My prayers are with you.
Hang in there. I have been dealing with stomach isssues linked with heart palalps off and on for 23 years. I would get the palps when I feel gassy, bloated, or right before a bowel movement. I just tested positive for h pylori and believe this may have been the cause of all my problems including recent anxiety and depression issues. I am prepping myself for natural treatment to get rid of this nasty infection. I pray this is the answer. Many poeple say when they get rid of hpylori all symptoms subside. We will see.
There is quite a bit of information on GERD/Irritable vagus and palpitations....
My PVC's essentially disappeared after I stopped taking Ambien... There is relationship between Ambien use and acid reflux and abdominal pain. and this seemed to trigger my PVC's....
You gave me alot to think about!! after the halter montior results came in,my heart doctor told me i had extra beats both in the upper and lower chambers of my heart,and one episode of svt ,but i dont know how serious that was because my heartrate was only around 100 bpm..its the palpitations that get the better of me,,i get scared and think im going to faint! sometimes they are just extra beats,other times ive had them feel like a muscle tick which is even more frightening.
What kind of stomache issues did you have? I have had stomache problems for years also,,mostly digestion and diarreha issues,,and last year in november tested positive for H pylori I am having another upper endoscopy next week for stomache pains and alot of burping just like what was happeing before ,my gasterentologist thinks i may have it back .My palps havent seen to be any worse after eating but mostly more of them in the evening and at night when im sitting still or laying in bed.
It all seems so complicated in figuring things out, thanks so much you have been helpful to me..ill wait for your reply.
What kind of stomache issues did you have? I have had stomache problems for years also,,mostly digestion and diarreha issues,,and last year in november tested positive for H pylori I am having another upper endoscopy next week for stomache pains and alot of burping just like what was happeing before ,my gasterentologist thinks i may have it back .My palps havent seen to be any worse after eating but mostly more of them in the evening and at night when im sitting still or laying in bed.
It all seems so complicated in figuring things out, thanks so much you have been helpful to me..ill wait for your reply.
Thank you so much for your reply.I definitly will ask my doctor about bystolic.Im so glad it seems to be working for you
DO you know the nature of the PACs/PVCs? Are they coming from the same exact spot in your heart or are they coming from different areas? this is called unifocal (same spot) versus multifocal (many spots).
Knowing this can help in guessing if an ablation would be helpful. unifocal obviously has a higher success rate.
The term SVT can mean a bunch of different things. Was the specific cause of the SVT ever determined? again, knowing the root cause of the SVT can help guess at the best course of action.
As for getting meds right, you could research the different classes of anti-arrhythmic drugs. There's beta (adrenaline) blockers, calcium channel blockers, potassium channel blockers, sodium channel blockers, and other with unknown mechanisms. There are 7 different total classes. A different approach might be to try a medication from each class and experiment. more info can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiarrhythmic_agent
The challenge with any meds, in my humble opinion, is that your cells will adjust or remodel to work around it. This is why some meds work great for 2 weeks then poop out. Some meds work great for people long term, I guess the cells can't remodel easily for that compound. It's trial and error.
Knowing this can help in guessing if an ablation would be helpful. unifocal obviously has a higher success rate.
The term SVT can mean a bunch of different things. Was the specific cause of the SVT ever determined? again, knowing the root cause of the SVT can help guess at the best course of action.
As for getting meds right, you could research the different classes of anti-arrhythmic drugs. There's beta (adrenaline) blockers, calcium channel blockers, potassium channel blockers, sodium channel blockers, and other with unknown mechanisms. There are 7 different total classes. A different approach might be to try a medication from each class and experiment. more info can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiarrhythmic_agent
The challenge with any meds, in my humble opinion, is that your cells will adjust or remodel to work around it. This is why some meds work great for 2 weeks then poop out. Some meds work great for people long term, I guess the cells can't remodel easily for that compound. It's trial and error.
The pvcs and pacs are different conditions then the svt. The svt, depending on what type you have, may be easy to fix with an ablation the pvcs/pacs are not. Do you feel the svt when you are in it? How fast is your heart beating? Do you know if you have afib? My cardiologist are not big on taking drugs unless you really need them or can't function. Unless you are in afib which would then require you to take a blood thinner or unless your pvcs fall into sustained vt which then might require an antiarrhythmic the medicine you are taking does not fix the problem. BB may help alleviate the symptoms of pvcs and pac and may slow the heart a bit while in an svt episode but they do not stop the episodes. An ablation may rid you of the svt for good but though ablations are fairly easy on the patient they are expensive. I guess before I did the ablation I would first want to know what type of svt I had. If it is an easy one to fix it might be worth it and may help your heart calm down a bit leading to the pacs/pvcs calming down. But you will likely continue to still experience the pacs/pvcs so you may also want to try to see if there are any stomach issues you can address. I had an svt avnrt that I had ablated last september but then found out that I also had pvcs/pacs. They continued afterwards until I addressed a stomach issue. So I think a combination of getting the heart ablated so the fast beats ended and then clearing up my stomach issues the pvcs/pac are now down to a handful to maybe 100 day so much more managable. So if you find that your pac/pvcs are especially worse after you eat you may want to see if you also have any stomach issues you can work to clear up. But know, even if you ablate the svt you will continue to have the pvcs/pacs. But getting rid of one condition may help alleviate the other and may help you get off the meds for goods so long as you don't have an bp problems. So talk to your doctor about what your situation is and what he thinks your odds are for clearing up the svt at least. I am not one to push the procedure on anyone but it may be worth thinking about if you want a shot at getting off the meds. Take care and keep us posted on how you are doing.
I have had episodes of SVT for years and years as well as PVCs and PACs. I had a really bad episode of SVT that wouldn't convert and ended up in the ER getting adenosine. Dr put me on atenolol and it worked well for a couple of years and then just seemed to quit working. My heart went totally goofy, had a couple of episodes of Afib, one of SVT, PVCs got awful, PACs were awful...it was terrible. Dr. put me on sotalol and it worked well for a couple of weeks then it started causing a new arrhythmia, so Dr. took me off that and put me on a relatively new beta blocker called bystolic. That was 2 years ago and so far so good. I would definitely give it a try before I went to one of the heavy duty meds like sotalol. I haven't had many side effects, if anything, right at first I had a mild headache and a little stomach upset but that went away after a couple of weeks.
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