Stomach issues = PVC's?

[Mike85281]

Does anybody else experience PVC's or PAC's when their stomach is upset? I am anxious most of the time, so my stomach is almost constantly roiling, but when I have worse stomach issues, my heart seems to skip when my stomach knots up. Not to be gross, but having a bowel movement can also make my heart skip. Does anybody else encounter this? Thanks.

[larsfox]

Hi All- This is a very interesting thread.  A few years ago I was having problems with SVT's (supra ventricular tachycardia) when eating.  I could feel the food hit the sphincter muscle in my stomach, and as often as not I'd have several "skipped" beats of the heart, then it would settle down.  One hot day I drank a glass of cold water, and my heart went into arrhythmia for about 40 minutes, long enough for me to get to the ER and get it recorded.  Fortunately, my heart converted to normal beats by itself, though PVC's remained pretty severely for several days.  I went to my heart doctor and mentioned what my heart did when I ate.  He'd never seen such a thing, so I showed him!  I brought a sandwich with me into the office, they hooked me up, I ate the sandwich and they were totally shocked when my heart did about four fast beats, then settled down.  The doc put me on a light dose of atenolol (a beta blocker), and that pretty much took care of the problem.  I still have periods of occasional PVC's, but I know at this point that they're not dangerous.  I've also found that an acidy tummy doesn't help matters at all!  A previous post told about using Zantac, and I've found that to help as well.  I do believe it to be the vegus nerve in my case, though I never received a definitive answer from the doctor.  The vegus nerve follows the esophagus down to the stomach and around the sphincter area; that nerve also travels to most of the organs of the body!  It's the vegus nerve that caused blood pressure to drop and a person to faint when, say, blood is drawn, so the vegus nerve is certainly connected to heart matters.  Hope this helps!  God Bless to all!

[venomversaguy13]

I almost always have my skipping feeling after I eat or after I work out and I can feel my food being pushed through my digestive tract. I will have the skipped beats then I will feel everything shift and I am in the bathroom within ten minutes. Its like clockwork. It is much worse with heavy foods or high sodium foods or if I haven't slept as much. I hate these things. I am 24 and very atheletic. Why me. Lol

[venomversaguy13]

I almost always have my skipping feeling after I eat or after I work out and I can feel my food being pushed through my digestive tract. I will have the skipped beats then I will feel everything shift and I am in the bathroom within ten minutes. Its like clockwork. It is much worse with heavy foods or high sodium foods or if I haven't slept as much. I hate these things. I am 24 and very atheletic. Why me. Lol

[Sanczar]

I am 37 and I have been tortured by PVC's for about a year and a half.  At first I would get them mostly at night when I would lay down...I attributed it to eating too late, but then I stopped eating after 6:30 pm and they would still occur.  They were getting worse and worse, so I went to a GI specialist first, thinking that I had GERD or a hiatal hernia or something, but my Gastroenterologist did a colonoscopy and an EGD (scope of the upper GI tract) and he found nothing wrong.  Then I went to a cardiologist because I just couldn't take it anymore.  They did an echocardiogram which showed nothing abnormal and great ventricular function, and a stress test which was perfect....not one PVC and no ST abnormalities at all,  So my doctor suggested a beta blocker - metoprolol - which actually made the problem worse.  So I was back at square one.  I tried to narrow down what in the world could possibly be causing them.  My husband suggested that it seemed my PVC's had increased since getting our cat. SO, I thought, hmmmm....PVC's can be a symptom of allergies, so why not try Claritin or benadryl.  Well, it seems to have helped immensely! I started taking Claritin once daily in the morning and I have FINALLY been getting some good nights of sleep!!  I hope it isn't just some temporary relief for some unknown reason.  Hope this helps!

[Jarhead3366]

Ya for sure this happens to me alot changes my day completely I hate it. been suffering with this since I was young and i'M 33 NOW. Stress causes this to happen more but ya gas can cause major havoc in my body.

[TatiSD]

Yup, same here. If I have an active palp day which then increase, suddenly I have to have a bowel movement, due to the high adrenaline that kicks in as a result of my anxiety.  
So that seems like a reaction to the PVC's.
Than many times in the morning, after having a BM that leaves me feeling drained and empty, starts my PVC's big time lasting for an hour at a time or longer.  My cardiologist attributed that to a reaction of high adrenaline/cortisol in the body.
I did notice that when I regularly take psyllium husk, the BM's in the morning are more calm, not so violent as the ones that leave me drained and empty.  Sorry guys, but perhaps extra fiber may also absorb some of the extra aggressive hormones in our bodies that contribute to these PVC's.  Possibly?