Question about risk of developing sudden death

[Carey01]

I have been reading these posts for years and a lot of wonderfulp people on this site have 100's if not thousands of PVCS/PACS per day and somehow manage.  MY hats off to all of you!  My question is this:  How does one KNOW  that their PVC/PACS exisiting in a structurally normal heart with no past heart failure will not go into to a run of PVC/PACS leading to V Tach or some other deadly arrythmia.  The fear of this happening has left me almost unable to travel because im worried that my bnign skips will suddenly change face and all come together.  I have to go out of town this weekend and am thinkingof cancelling.  Any information would be so helpful.

Thanks-
Carey

[Wisconsin2007]

Though I find your last post a little crass, I have had some of the same thoughts.  Like if I had to choose a way to go, suffering through months of chemo and radiation would not be fun.  Well, no dying would be fun.  But all of a sudden losing oxygen to your brain wouldn't really give you any pain.  You'd just take an abrupt nap and that'd be that.  Not a bad way to go, as ways to go are concerned.

As for your PVC's being relatively constant, day and night - were they perfectly constant, or just that you had them frequently in the daytime and night time?  Because I had that for awhile, too.  6 months or so.  Some days worse, some days better.  But all with at least 5K PVC's a day, through the morning, noon and night.  

Even now, wearing this event monitor, I'm only having 10-40 of them a day.  So even consistent PVC's can change in frequency.  

[missalisa]

Oh, and I found the "Develop Sudden Death" line inadvertently amusing. You cannot develop a sudden death. That's why it's sudden death. :-)

Of all the things to worry about, sudden death should be pretty low on the list. If it comes, it will be sudden, and you will be dead. Story over.

[missalisa]

There must be a cause of PACs/PVCs. I really don't understand why more research has not been done to figure it out. I just got my holter results back, and they were consistent, day and night, which the doctor thinks means they are not anxiety-produced, or triggered by food or drink. They are something else. I wish modern science would tackle this thing and figure it out. None of us are satisfied with the "you're fine" diagnosis, because our bodies tell us otherwise. Something is amiss. Something caused it. If there was a cause, there must be a fix. They just don't have it yet. I imagine someday science will discover the cause, and future generations will look back on these message boards with pity for us who lived through the dark ages of PVC ignorance.

[Wisconsin2007]

I'd eaten a bunch of chocolate last night, then hopped onto the treadmill to try to produce some symptoms.  I had handful of PVC's over a 40 minute period, one of them kinda hard, so I pressed the button on the event monitor.  What the heck, right?  I was feeling pretty good about myself, felt like I was climbing out of this funk of odd rhythms, stress and anxiousness.

Then we (the family) go to the store today - I know it's going to cut into the time I need to get things done and make me more anxious (and that's why I go - to try to coax these rhythms out).  I'm fine until near the end of the trip, start feeling jittery, decide to put my finger to my carotid and I catch three quick beats bumpbumpbump before it returns to a normal rhythm.  All my enthusiasm leaves me and I get bummed thinking about what this might mean in terms of meds, long term prognoses, limitations in activities, etc.

And that's where I sit right now.  So I guess it's a good time to have this thread to read.  Crazy to let three stupid beats wreck my day.  

[jkfrench]

I'm in the same boat as you right now.  My skips increased in intensity 2 months ago.  I can go hours with one every 5 beat then every 10 beat and so on.  I get a few hours of relief then they start up when I lay down to try and sleep.  I had the holter on yesterday and it was one of the worst days I've ever had.  I laid in bed last night from 11:30 to almost 3:00 feeling these skips.  I tried to lie on my right side.  I took a deep breath and wham a whole string of something that lasted a few seconds.  I have no idea what it was.  Felt like 4 quick beats in a row.
Made me sit up and panic.
I saw my doctor this morning who is going to call me tonight with the results because I was so upset.  He told me that if I let them (the pvc's) win, they most surely will.  He also said they will settle down again.
He offered me something called alprazolam and told me to break it in half.  He said to take it for a short period.  Has anyone heard of that pill?  I'm sure it is an anxiety pill.  Anyway, I don't want to take it.  I really hope that this holter comes back okay and I really hope that I can believe him this time.  
AND, I can totally relate to canceling trips because of this.  When your heart is jumping around benign or not it is exhausting.

Frenchie

[nervouslady]

This is a helpful thread, thanks for bumping it.  Agreed how much of this stuff is anxiety induced/related.  It's hard to think that way when so much of it is tangible, physiological reponses to stress though.  My cardiologist said my runs of NSVT are not caused by anxiety but can be egged on by it.  As for the other arrhythmias that I get, the majority are likely caused by being anxious.

Interesting that a lot of people started getting these when their mortality came into view/question.  Same for me.  I was so healty, normal, never an issue beyond a cold or the flu, and then bam!  Stroke. And no one ever was able to figure out why.  Stroke?  ME?  But I'm a healthy 24 year old!  It changed my whole world and I haven't been the same since.  I do worry about my health excessively as a result and feel like something unexpected will strike me again like that.  Including my heart stopping, sudden cardiac death, having another stroke, etc etc etc.  But everyone here is right - if it happens, it happens, and what could I have done to stop it or predict it?  Very little, if anything.  Just like the time I had a stroke, I had no warning signs, no symptoms, felt fine. I even went into the ER after the stroke and they sent me home, I looked fine to them.  

I have to find a way to not worry about dying spontaneously.  If it's my time, then I guess it's my time.  Until then, I need to let it go and enjoy life again, skips and blips and all.