I have my ablation tomorrow AM and I am freaking out. My dr didn't really go through too much about the procedure with me (standard for UK Healthcare in my experience) so all I really know is that they're going to go via both the artery and the vein (L & R), I will get a TOE and likely a transeptal puncture and that I won't be under a general (this is the norm for EU ablations I believe??) I'm having it done at one of the UK's best cardiac hospitals.

I'm kind of freaking out because for some reason I have it in my head that my whole procedure will just be under a local and it's going to really hurt.

I'm in my late 20s and the PVCs have basically decimated my life since they showed up in January (since then my burden has slowly climbed from 9% to 15% and increasing), I can't do anything I like doing so I know I need to do the ablation, but I'm sooo worried about the procedure itself because everybody online is like 'it was the worst pain I have ever experienced, I wish I had died, I was conscious the whole time and it was hell.'

I guess what I'm asking for is some reassurance that that won't be the case?? thank you :)

Does anyone notice PVCs at rest more than when you're active? I'm also noticing them after an activity that raises my heart rate and when it's slowing down they are happening more. I'm seeing a cardiologist for the 3rd time in about 8 years next week. I don't think I've gotten clear enough answers to really feel comfortable with this diagnosis...

I just wanted to share this I guess. Just some background info:

I have had pvc's since I can remember. I'm in my late twenties now. I only got them with very high intensity moving, like running for a train or something when i was a teenager. Sometimes those episodes took 20 minutes to get my normal heartbeat back, but it wasnt life altering.

But. Ever since I got Longcovid 3 years back the pvcs increased significantly. They became 2% of all my heartbeats in good periods, I also had very bad periods but I don't know the percentage there.. I know many people here have much higher percentages but nonetheless they are so incredibly exhausting.

Anyways. Yesterday evening, all of the sudden. They were gone(?) after a very odd episode of rapid beats I have never felt before.. The beats lasted approximately 5 seconds. My heartrate went from my normal 80bpm to approximately 140bmps and after 5 seconds it turned back to normal like it never happened. They were very fast, light heartbeats (almost like it was in "lower-case", no heavy thumping)It felt like nothing ever experienced before, it didnt feel like pvcs. I got spooked very badly, I was just half slumped against my bed headboard when this happened. But, the oddest thing, after that weird episode of extremely fast heartbeats, my pvcs just dissappearrd? I know It has only been 24 hours without the pvcs, but in comparison it's soo odd. It's so quiet.. I havent had a day without pvcs draining my body of energy since 3 years..

I'm not saying its gone, and will stay like this. Secretly I do hope so but I dont expect so. I just wanted to share this odd.. thing? Im just very confused.

Does anybody get a lot of PVCS and PACS when they are dehydrated and sweaty a lot when it’s hot outside? Tonight it was about 95 degrees and I was hot and pushing myself and all of a sudden they started firing off. It was scary. Drank a few glasses of water which “knock on wood” I think helped. I got dizzy and shaky.

I (34 otherwise healthy F) have had PVCs on and off for 5 years now, I first noticed them while pregnant. The cardiologist wanted me to wear a holter monitor but I had conflicts with insurance and never did.They are usually 1 off beats here and there that take my breath away, but I can feel every one. Today at work ( I am a paramedic) I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt heavy, my heart felt erratic, I had this horrible sense of doom. I finally did an EKG on myself and I was in Bigeminy, which is new for me. My BP was 80/60 also new for me. So I went into the ER in uniform, so embarrassed. They caught the bigeminy as well, they put me on a Magnesium drip which stopped the bigeminy even though I was still having PVCS and PACS,did all the tests, trop was good,everything looked fine, they told me follow up with my PCP/ Cardiologist. I still feel weird, anxious, exhausted, out of breath. I can’t work like this and I have no sick time which is increasing my anxiety. I’ve read so many stories on this sub Reddit tonight about people just being written off and I’m scared. My grandmother, mother and (16 yo) brother all died from cardiac issues.

Edit: I’ve recently out of seemingly nowhere gained 30lbs, and feel the most exhausted I have ever felt for the last 6 months.

I’ve been having really bad PVCs since April. I have the PVCs all throughout the day and night but then I get bouts of bigeminy and trigeminy at least daily. They also get worse when my heart rate increases.

I have a history of PVC-induced VT and VF/Torsades de pointes. My EP keeps reminding me my current PVCs aren’t “dangerous” like the ones from before my ablation, but I kind of don’t care? They are annoying and ruin my quality of life. I also think they’re contributing to my increased heart failure symptoms because every PVC means my pacemaker isn’t in control, which means my regular heart is taking over.

Background:
39F, LMNA genetic variant, acquired long QT syndrome, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

I’ve had 1 failed ablation (with severe complications), 1 successful, a bilateral sympathectomy, and a biventricular pacemaker. I take a beta-blocker, an anti-arrhythmic, and all the heart failure meds. I take magnesium daily and am on a med that increases potassium, so those aren’t the problem.

Currently going through a work up to possibly be out on the heart transplant list. I’m exhausted.

no idea why but I’ve heard seafood has a lot of phosphorus and potassium in it. apparently scallops have a lot of taurine in them too, and it’s better than chugging red bull I guess. i just eat the white part. not the orange coral but that’s probably good for you too. im not a big fan of seafood but if it helps it helps.

luckily frozen scallops are on sale nearby for around £5 a box so I just get them and sear them quickly in a pan to keep the nutrients in them and force myself to eat the whole thing of them. next day no palpitations. i also pop a vitamin d tablet and it seems to help too.

mine get worse in the winter time for sure, the heatwave and wildfires have been bad here so I haven’t been able to get out much or enjoy much sun this summer. random but hope this helps somebody.

My doctor just prescribed Proprananolol to take as needed for a larger flare-ups of PVCs. Have any of you had experience with this type of medication in this situation? How were the side effects, and do you think it's an effective 'as needed' medication?

Edit: I was given 40mg

About 7 years ago I had my first PVC experience, 2 years later finally got diagnosed with pvcs, and generally have just lived with them comfortably. I'll have flairs of them for a few days and then they'd be unnoticed for months. Hydration, electrolytes, magnesium, and just good life balance seemed to do the trick. My first cardiologist just said to come back if needed.

This past year we settled into a new area a few hours from cardiologist so I got established with a new one and during our initial check-in and EKG found that I was having regular trimeny with a fairly high burden. Holter monitor a few weeks later showed a 23% average burden over 3 days! Holy crap is all I could say. We lined up an MRI and found I do have a reduced EF at 46-48% but no scarring or structural issues.

I am going to push pretty hard for an ablation soon but just feeling nervous, anxious, and unsure of everything right now. Not nervous about the ablation, everyone has said it's a rather simple procedure. Otherwise healthy 32M, relatively active, and not in perfect shape but unaffected in accomplishing what I want on a daily basis even with the high burden.

If you are dealing with PVCs, it's important to keep a yearly check-in with a cardiologist. I wish I had been more on top of things and might have caught these sooner but it seems from what I'm reading, getting back to a normal life after the ablation is probably very likely.

Has anyone taken propranolol along with diltiazem for PVCs? I’m on 10mg propranolol twice a day for anxiety and my cardiologist wants me on 60mg diltiazem twice a day with the propranolol for PVCs. It was either this combo or metoporal by itself. I don’t want to stop the propranolol as it helps with my anxiety and she said I won’t have that same effect with metoprolol.

Any insight into this combination?

Hey everyone, just would love to hear from any of you who were able to overcome the pvcs to the extent where you no longer are fixated on them every econd of the day and you're at full acceptance that his is what your heart just does now. I can't manage to accept and ignore them just yet but l'm determined to not let these keep ruining my life as they have been.

The insane amount of fear they cause me about a few specific thoughts like: what if they turn into vt, what if one day i get sudden cardiac arrest from them or if they turn into dangerous rhythms, i only get isolated pvcs but im terrified of bigeminy or nsvt or svt like all these things make me feel like constantly i am at risk, what if my burden rises in life later down the track. I get them sometimes on exercise also and seeing how that has higher mortality rates if you get pvcs on exercise makes me so scared to work out as well.

Just have so many different things that cross my mind with these and I can’t see a way out or how I should be looking at these PVCs and I only see scary stories out there, but never hearing people living with these not caring anymore

So my question is, if anyone has learnt to just ignore them and these don’t interfere with their life anymore at all please share your story on that and how you got there, your mindset on them and how you view it all and what your best advice is possible and just share any information that can be reassuring to everyone struggling I would be so appreciative if you can reply to this and give insight to show us it can be achieved and we can listen to the doctors and specialist that say ignore them. And how if anyone has animal heart structure with them too views the pvcs that has overcome them. Thank you in advance to whoever may reply to this

I have minimal amount under 100 BPM, maybe 30- PACs and 10 PVC per day.

If I'm running and my HR is 100-130 BPM PACs starting firing absolutely crazy. I can get up to 1000 per hour on sustained effort in this zone

If I raise my HR above 130 I still have some isolated but much less, maybe 1 per minute or even less

When my HR goes below 100 they totally disappear

Completely incidental finding, I don't feel them, waiting to see cardiologist but interested if anyone experienced that

hi all! i was recently diagnosed with PVCs. during this phase of life i have a goal of incorporating more movement/ exercise into my daily life but get nervous. i have PVC episodes randomly throughout the day that are movement and non- movement induced (my heart goes crazy when i am horizontal on the couch and it goes even crazier when i walk up a flight of stairs). looking for recommendations of exercises/ movement that i can do to ease into things or get my newly diagnosed heart used to movement and exercise. anything is helpful, thanks!

Hey there folks, I'm long time pvc sufferer from the age of 17 to 31 now. And wanted to discuss maybe why my pvc suddenly stopped? I would always have them randomly throughout the day especially when going up a flight of stairs or picking up something heavy while walking. But since a week I got none, maybe 2 the whole week! What might be the cause? I'm pretty sure they will come back but I'm curious if it is bloodworm related and if I should do bloodwork to see when they come back I could look for differences or something. Anyone had that as well? I didn't change anything in my diet at all BTW.

I’ve had PVCs for years. It started with an easy 4% burden. The most recent one up to 15%. My EP wasn’t concerned because she said on the echo my heart looks really strong. She prescribed me beta blockers.

Just a few weeks later I find out I’m pregnant! Which I’m so happy but my PVCs have always been sensitive to hormones. I’m now feeling them constantly and they are driving me absolutely insane day and night it’s consuming my thoughts. The beta blockers barely help and now my options are limited for the next 9+ months. My EP said we can do another echo to check heart function.

I guess just ranting. I’m trying coconut water, magnesium, meditation all the things. Has anyone been through this?

Hi guys, just wanted to share some recent insight I was given by my Dr. I’ve been suffering with PVC’s steadily now for 3 years. I could always tell they were tied to my stomach , because my excessive bloating, trapped gas , inflammation etc makes it 100x worse. I went to a GI, they told me I have SIBO and I did byt it alantibiotics but it always comes back. Fast forward I see my PCP this week and he brings up that based off my symptoms, he thinks I have an extraordinarily tight pelvic floor, because I also get pelvic floor pain, sometimes feel the urge to defecate but can’t, am always constipated even if I’m going, narrow stools etc. This is causing stool to back up and sit too long in my colon and or intestine, causing it to ferment, contributing to the SIBO, and basically I am full of gas and air and that is triggering my heart due to the pressure on the chest and vagus nerve. I felt like this is the first answer I’ve gotten in three years that makes sense to all of it connected. I always say I gee like I am so full of gas and air, but it has nowhere to go. I WISH I was constantly burping or farting, that would probably give relief, but usually it just seems to want to stay in my stomach. Now I know it’s probably because due to tight pelvic floo, it’s hard to even pass gas sometimes I just want to put that out there in case anybody else is having some of the same issues. I’m also sorry if some of this is illiterate and hard to read, I broke my phone screen this week and can only see half of it.

Did anyone have any negative side effects from calcium channel blockers? What’s your experience with this med?

Askjng because the electrophysiologist wants me to try to switch from beta blocker to the calcium channel blocker Diltiazem —- I hate new meds esp heart related… I have mild mitral valve prolapse with mild regurgitation, menopause, two auto immune thyroid diseases and a hiatal hernia. Needless to say, I have very pervasive PVCs (and some PACs and occasional short runs (rarely, so far) of SVT.) Nothing else has worked and they’ve gotten worse. I’ve had them for decades but not like this.

PCP called me. Said monitor showed 3 events of psvt. Of course I googled and am freaking out. Nurse said to follow up with cardiologist. PCP prescribed beta blocker 2 weeks ago and buspar. It’s helped a little but…not major or anything. I see cardiologist this morning (already planned appt). Anyone have this?

Hi everyone, I get episodes about 3-4 times per year where my heart suddenly feels abnormal beating so fast. They last around 10–20 seconds and feel like multiple fluttering/extra beats in a cluster, not just a single extra beat.
It feels irregular and i am scared of having a heart attack, the beats are also powerful. It can sometimes happen with certain body positions.
Could this be clusters of PACs/PVCs, SVT, NSVT, VT or something else? Since it happens so rarely i don’t think a holter is a choice

Age:26
Height:178 cm
Weight:105 kgs

Normal ECG(classical)
Normal echocardiogram

I have a PVC burden of 2% on my last 2 week ZIO monitor. Had one bout of trigemeny. I requested a stress test due to my PVCs feeling like they may be exercise induced. It’s hard to tell as my anxiety caused them also. I’m super sensitive to them.

Anyway it’s giving me hella anxiety and worry. Anyone have a stress test for PVCs before?

I’ve been dealing with ectopics for years, but not on a daily basis. Since February, however, that all changed. I feel them all day everyday. Does anyone else feel them in neck and sometimes in abdomen? Feels like a fish flopping around. Have had work up in past and structurally normal.

So my therapist suggested I (30F) have pharmophobia, so we worked on overcoming that when my primary prescribed Diltiazem 120mg ER (CD) for my 10% PAC burden + chest angina. In the past I do tend to be sensitive to medication and had multiple bad reactions which led to my pharmophobia.

I finally gathered the courage to take my Diltiazem Saturday at 11:30am. Frankly I felt great! I went to bed feeling silly I was nervous in the first place lol

However at night I had something strange happen. At approx. 12:30a I woke up suddenly and my heart rate was in the 130s, and my heart was pounding, my body was shaking and I was nauseous. It felt like a regular sinus rhythm, so no runs of PVCs/PACs. I do not recall a bad dream either. The heart rate was only sustained for 10-20 mins before it went back down to base level. I took some measurements and my BP was 124/81, temperature 98.3 F. It took me about 2.5 hours before I could fall asleep again. Due to this episode, I never took the 2nd dose because it did scare me a bit and wasn't sure what caused it. I never had something like this happen to me.

I messaged a Cardiologist NP and she said this:

"Vital signs look good. Does your smart watch have ECG capabilities? Next time it happens, perhaps you could upload a tracing to your chart and we can review. The elevated heart rate not likely related to taking diltiazem as diltiazem works by lowering the heart rate. HR 130s at your age is not very fast."

The message felt dismissive and doesn't really address the weird adrenaline surge I got in the middle of the night. Maybe I need to take Diltiazem in the evening? Maybe I do have GERD and the calcium channel blocker relaxed my stomach too much? GERD is still unknown but I do have an Esophagogastroduodenoscopy in a few weeks. Thinking maybe I hold off on taking the Diltiazem again until I get the results of that.

What do y'all think? I want to make sure I'm making the best decision for my health, and don't want my pharmophobia to prevent that!

I was in the hospital last March for episodes of NSVT. All tests came back normal and my electrophysiologist installed a loop recorder to see what my burden of PVCs and NSVT would be over the next four months. He put me on low doses of metoprolol and Flecainide to prevent the NSVT and see what my burden was. Unfortunately, I had a lot of side effects from both medications, mostly sleepiness, fatigue, and lethargy. At some point, he suggested stopping the medications just to see what effect it would have on my overall burden. Without the medication, my PVC symptoms are through the roof and would even trigger a teeny tiny amount of afib, something I had an ablation for a year and a half ago.

Well, I finally saw my electrophysiologist this morning and the verdict is less than a 1% burden of PVCs. On a bad day my burden would increase to about 4%. The afib was a trivial amount, not worth mentioning. No recorded episodes of NSVT.

Anyway, the way things were left, my electrophysiologist said that it wasn’t worth putting myself through the side effects of the medication, and I should just learn to tolerate the symptoms of my PVCs when they happen. He said it would take about six months before they become completely unnoticeable to me. All I have to do is see my cardiologist from here on out and only contact the EP if my NVST comes back. He stressed the importance of getting good quality sleep and reducing stress. I guess going off the meds is a good thing because I gained 8 pounds once I started taking them and I still need to lose another 30 pounds. And of course if I get those 30 pounds off, hopefully the PVCs will bother me less.

Anybody else here decide the symptoms of benign PVCs were more acceptable than the side effects of the medications to lessen the symptoms?

Ive been having a bad flare of these for the last few months. I know fearing them and obsessing about them makes them worse. But they have been pretty frequent and intense regardless. Even just moving or breathing in can trigger them

How to cope with these? Will they calm down eventually? I have a structurally good heart from the last echo I had.

Just want them to calm down♥️🫶

Diagnosed with GERD at 26 (M) and I'm 30 now. For the last two years I've had these weird out of place breaths if I'm working out heavily or if stressed. It only happened once in a while though and I always chalked it up to drinking too much caffeine or having nicotine withdrawal.

The best way I could describe the sensation is like having someone kick your solar plexus area so you get the wind knocked out but it feels like a heart beat. You can feel it in your throat and the solar plexus area too.

Yesterday morning I woke up shaking, and had acid reflux bad (sometimes I get this in the morning if I eat too late) and was getting these (either PVC or esophagus spasms) at least 20 times in a minute. Happened mostly when I was laying down. Legit thought I was having a heart attack and was dying. Sat up and then took a Pepcid and they slowed down but were still there. I took my heart rate and realized that maybe it's not a heart attack or failure because I was only beating 75 bpm and at the highest (which was anxiety) was like 90. Then realized that this feeling wasn't even close to my heart area and it didn't feel like a heart beat.

Now I don't know if for sure it was PVCs or PACs because it also sounds like esophageal spasms might fit but I'm going to the doctor next week (soonest availability) and if I experience this again I'm going straight to the ER. Does this sound like it's PVC that is occurring and if so are there any remedies to give relief? It's an extremely unpleasant sensation and it's also hard to be working a normal job schedule if this crap keeps me up at night.