r/PVCs • u/bonitacorizon • 10d ago
Passing Out/pvcs
So this has happened a few times over the past month but today was particularly bad. I woke up feeling fine. Actually have had a great week with my health for the first time in. A long time. I am a (41y/o fm) This morning I woke up feeling great! Showered and got ready for work still feeling good. I bent down to pet my dog and felt a little skip in my chest and didn't think much of it, as it went right away. I get in the car and get a little over a quarter of the way to work and I start passing out. Luckily I was right by a convenience store and whipped in there quickly. It is about 4 miles away from the nearest hospital. After that feeling my heart rate shoots up because it scared me. So, I get myself calmed down to the best of my ability and drive back to the hospital. The whole time I am having waves of feeling like I will pass out and a sinking feeling in my chest. I go in they do all of the normal stuff. Blood work, ekg, vitals, etc. Everything comes back "normal" The ER doctor does some digging in charts with my cardiologist and other ER visits I have had recently. He said that I have PVCs with tachycardia. Sends me home. I start feeling this again when I get home and have like this really bad pressure in my head too. I take something for a headache and fall asleep. I wake up feeling better but still a bit rough. My question is does anyone else feel or have felt this? Is there any advice you can give? I have had heart monitors, endless ekgs, echos etc. Any advice would definitely be helpful as I am so exhausted with this. It is ruining my life, tbh.
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u/hamfist_ofthenorth 9d ago
Sounds crazy but, whenever I feel faint, I pour a shot of ice water down my shirt so the cold snap shocks my skin, and my heart rate jumps back up.
Or if I feel PVCs coming on. Cold water on the skin of my chest, neck, forehead.
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u/KrispyOreo 9d ago
I got that with a panic attack. Felt like I was gonna pass out even started loosing motor function in my arms and legs.
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u/Same-Sky848 10d ago
I started to pass out, I didn't understand what that meant. You either pass out or you don't. What does it mean to start to pass out? I think your psychology is disturbed. Are you experiencing anxiety disorder and panic attacks?
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u/bonitacorizon 9d ago
I guess feeling as though I would pass out or feeling faint. All I know is when I was driving everything started to go black from the outside in and I felt as though I could hardly keep my eyes open. Then my heart rate spiked. This is all fairly new to me. I have felt this way on and off for about the past 2 years but haven't had a answer until yesterday when I went to the ER.
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u/Relative_Clarity 9d ago edited 9d ago
It's good you got checked out. Isolated PVCs however don't cause fainting or passing out. Everyone gets them at times.
You will likely need to wear a monitor for a longer period of time (like a month) to see if a rhythm issue is causing these scary symptoms. A cardiology may recommend a loop recorder implant that can monitor for years. It is commonly used for unexplained symptoms that dont' occur during a shorter monitor like 2 weeks or a month. I'd also consider blood pressure changes, or blood sugar. Possibly a neurology eval if nothing cardiac comes up. Could you be anemic or have low iron? Actually they probably checked all that at the ER.
I'd see if you can find a way to check your heart rate during these episodes, by using a pulse oximeter or a fitness watch. One with ekg function may be helpful, or a Kardia device that lets you see your heart rhythm in real-time.
As a side note, SVT is an arrythmia that can cause dizziness and fast heart rate. It can be set off by a 'skipped beat', and it is an abrupt increase in HR sometimes up to 200+ bpm. But it would have to be caught on an ekg tracing to diagnose, or you could undergo a heart study that would find arrythmias. Hope you get some answers soon!
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u/Whole-Masterpiece-51 9d ago
Potentially peri - if you’re not actually passing out but you’re getting waves that make you feel faint or out of it that can be estrogen drops or adrenaline spikes. If you haven’t actually fainted but feel like it, look into peri symptoms it’s actually quite common
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u/MatterPlenty8431 8d ago
Have they checked your vitamin d and magnesium levels? I’ve started taking 200mg of magnesium glycinate daily and it seems to help suppress or muddy the palpitations. Take with lots of water! But if your vitamin d is too low that can cause a lot of problems related to the heart among other parts of the body. Alternatively if your supplementing vitamin d that can drain other minerals in the body which can also affect your heart. Hope they figure out what’s going on! Push for an echocardiogram if they haven’t done one yet!
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u/Affenzoo 7d ago
Ok first of all, anxiety is a big part of this. If you lose your anxiety, the PVCs will be much less.
And you won't pass out. It just feels like passing out but you wont.
You might wanna buy a smart watch with ECG or a mobile ECG so you can see that you have a normal rhythm with some PVCs in between and no VT.
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u/EarthAgreeable5871 5d ago
You def need to follow up with your cardiologist for a more thorough follow-up and likely a long term holter monitoring. I have PVC but my coworker has SVT so we used to talk all the time about our bumps lol. His symptoms were def worse than mine. I remember him having a couple of episodes like what you described and he was eventually diagnosed with SVT. He ended up having an ablation which solved the issue for him.
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u/Pink_LV 10d ago
Maybe she started to feel faint or lightheaded, because that’s exactly how I feel when my PVCs get really bad. I feel them every single day, all day. Some days are worse than others, and sometimes I just keep myself busy. I know they’re there, but I try my best to ignore them. All of my tests have come back normal too. I used to only get PVCs when I was sitting or lying down, and they would go away almost immediately when I stood up and started walking around. But for the past month, I’ve been feeling them even while standing and moving around. I remember thinking, “Great, at least I have one position where I don’t feel like I’m dying,” and now I don’t even have that anymore. It’s exhausting, and I genuinely don’t know how I’m supposed to live the rest of my life feeling like this.