Anyone experience occasional palpitations or premature ventricular contractions?

[dwhist]

I had PVC's before heart surgery in 2011. In 2008 I was doing a stress test and they stopped it after 5 minutes because they were coming in strings of 3. I still had them after surgery and grew used to them. In around 2015 my doc put me on small doses of Losartan and Amlodipine to bring my blood pressure down a bit. I noticed at a point that I had a lot less PVC's and still today have very few compared to before taking the new meds. Not sure if worth talking to doc about the meds to reduce PVC's if they bother you enough.

 

[Amy]

Hi guys -

So I’m 3.5 years postop, and the dang PVCs / PACs are back. (Posted here 6 months ago about them)

It’s Day 16 of them.

Six months ago I went to my PCP, the ER AND two different cardiologists. No one took me seriously. (They didn’t even tell me how to use their Holter monitor correctly, so when I went in for the results they just brushed me off, saying, ‘They’re not really that frequent, and you only self-noted one episode, so...’ (The nurse had told me NOT to ever push the button, but I did anyway.. once)).

The thing is, I’m aware of them all the dang time, because it feels very differently from usual.

They’re double and triple beats, that happen every 3 - 6 beats or so; but even the ‘normal’ beats are pounding much harder than usual and feel unstable, not a smooth rhythm; my heart feels weak and like something bad is happening in there, lol - not sure how else to describe it.

I’ve tried deep breathing, even Buteyko breathing, meditation, but it is not an anxiety or stress thing, and unfortunately I don’t notice any change no matter what I do. (Taking supplements or not, drinking more water or not, exercising vs resting)

It’s just relentless and exhausting and I’m sometimes short of breath from them - I wouldn’t say severely short of breath for long periods of time... but it is still scary and I wanted to ask if anyone has any ideas.

It’s not sustained tachycardia, so I don’t think going back on Metoprolol is in order; my BP isn’t high.

If you have any idea at all or similar experiences, please let me know! (I need sleep.) Thank you!

 

[dornole]

Have you seen or talked to cardiology about this 16 day episode? I know you feel like they blew you off last time but this might be a different issue?

Another thing you might look into could be a Kardia. This was helpful for me because the cardiac nurses and cardiologists both said “well those are pretty accurate” and it helped them believe my afib reporting. Whereas when they asked “how do you know you are having afib?” and I said “I can easily feel it just taking my pulse that it’s irregularly irregular and 150+ BPM and I become short of breath” wasn’t as reliable. They liked the Kardia. I also have a pulse oximeter that “beeps” with each beat and was able to play that over the phone so they could hear how fast and irregular it was. That is how I got recommended for ER visit the first time I had afib with RVR.

Not sleeping is no good so I guess you need to try to get someone’s attention again. It’s very frustrating but hopefully you can get either a definitive treatment or something to at least help you sleep.