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PVCs and PACs? — Irregular Heartbeats


Scout

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I am wondering how common this is?

I get — and increasingly — irregular heartbeats, but it seems to only be when I am either sitting, or getting into bed and lying down. Sometimes, it happens when I sit down to eat, after I have had a few mouthfuls.

I've had several times recently, where I will have a succession of 3 to 5 PVCS (they may be PACs, but they feel lower down, so I am assuming PVCs), and then my heart will race very fast, for a while after, almost as if to reset itself.

It always feels so intense when it happens, this sudden, violent thumping in my chest, and then, slowly gets back to normal.

Curious how common this is? It can be quite startling.

 

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I’ve had numerous holter and event monitors and they always show PVCs and PACs, I’ve had them for as long as I can remember - probably one of my first symptoms actually. Palpitations are normal in healthy people too, it just seems that we get them more frequently. Lucky us...

The majority of mine also seem to come at rest ie when I’m sitting or laying down. I know the “resetting” tachycardia feeling well too, however my HR is much more controlled with meds now. 

Have you found anything that helps relieve the frequency of your palpitations? 

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When I first started with POTS I had the PVC's really bad as well as the tachycardia. Numerous halters and an implanted loop recorder showed just PVC's. My specialist says they are extremely common in POTS - almost a necessity. He explained to me that they are due to the ANS becoming overactive, essentially an alarm system for us to know we have to stop and rest. Mine are almost completely gone with medication, BB being one of the most helpful. I take Carvelidol, which out of 3 BB's I tried is the only one that stopped them. 

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14 hours ago, Scout said:

I am wondering how common this is?

I get — and increasingly — irregular heartbeats, but it seems to only be when I am either sitting, or getting into bed and lying down. Sometimes, it happens when I sit down to eat, after I have had a few mouthfuls.

I've had several times recently, where I will have a succession of 3 to 5 PVCS (they may be PACs, but they feel lower down, so I am assuming PVCs), and then my heart will race very fast, for a while after, almost as if to reset itself.

It always feels so intense when it happens, this sudden, violent thumping in my chest, and then, slowly gets back to normal.

Curious how common this is? It can be quite startling.

 

I’ve had heart palpitations for years. With my POTS symptoms I started being tested though cardiology. I didn’t realize what kind of palpitations they were - I have PVC’s apparently. I’ve had 2 episodes today already that I was aware of - but my 24 hour monitor showed I had upwards of 20 + PVC’s a day. Cardiology is not concerned about this though. I seem to have them more and more frequently as I age. 

I feel my heart ‘flip’ in my chest, stop beating, I stop breathing for a second or two and then it starts beating rapidly and then normalizes after that. Aside from the brief breathlessness it never really others me. Sometimes when it ‘flips’ it can be a harder ‘thunk’ in my chest than other days so it varies in how I feel them. 

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16 hours ago, FileTrekker said:

I'd be pretty chuffed with only 20 PVCs a day, I have nearly 3,000 a day!

I think anything under 20,000 and the doctors generally don't consider it significant at all, indeed they just see it as normal.

3,000 PVC’s! Holy cow. I didn’t know that was possible! No wonder they weren’t concerned about mine 😂

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5 hours ago, FileTrekker said:

Haha, yeah, but given the average human being has (at least) 86,400 beats a day, often over 140,000 beats per day, even 3,000 in one day is only 3.4% of all heartbeats. So not very significant.

In your case only 0.02% of your heart beats are ectopic, so you're laughing, lol.

They're reaaaaaaaaaly annoying though.

Love the science! That is amazing.

Totally agree - they are very annoying! Especially when they literally take your breath away 😕

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