saab
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Hi. I have had my pvc's for 8 years now. Some days are worse than others. My last holter monitor, over a year ago, showed 300 - I hadn't felt any that day. I probably have hundreds if not thousands on a bad day.
The key thing is that all the evidence seems to suggest that pvc's are not harmful if your heart is structurally sound. If you have had all the tests like ekg, holter monitor, heart echo, I would think you can be sure your heart is in good shape.
The number pf pvc's a day doesn't seem significant either - it is more to do with what the erratic beats are identified as, rather than how many you get. Apparently, benign pvc's are easily identified on an ekg, and clearly distinguishable from serious arrythmias. I have hundreds a day and I am still told not to worry.
I have read on other sites, like the Cleveland Clinic forum, that doctors there do not treat them aggressively (eg ablation) unless you are having 10k plus a day and you have symptoms. I get the impression that even beta blockers, which are usually the first port of call, are often prescribed for their calming effect on the patient, not because the palps are doing you any harm.
Of course, being told they are harmless and truly accepting that fact, is difficult when you feel so many. I have found several triggers - a heavy meal, caffeine, stress, a very cold day. However, nothing has made them disappear completely and I can honestly say that they have cast a huge shadow of anxiety over my life for several years.
Part of the trouble is that we are so convinced that they are harming us that no amount of doctors or medical info will convince us to the contrary. When I am not having them I can be logical and see that they are benign - but on a bad day it is hard not to be very anxious.
I would do all you can to manage the pvc's by avoiding the triggers, and then try to address the anxiety issues. There are some great relaxation/meditation things on You Tube. I have found Jon Kabbat Zinn's mindfulness books and cd's useful. Claire Weekes books are great, as is 'Stop Thinking Start Living' by Richard Carlson.
I believe bigeminy is a pvc every second beat, trigemy every third and so on.
To put your fears in perspective, the heart attack death rate amongst smokers is 70% higher than amongst non smokers.
http://heart-disease.emedtv.com/heart-attack/heart-attack-and-smoking-p2.html
Basically, lifestyle and diet should be more of a concern to us than the pvc's. However, because we feel the pvc's on a daily basis, whereas heart disease creeps up on us silently over decades, we get it into our heads that the pvc's are dangerous and ignore the lifestyle factors that are actually killing us.
If pvc's were a serious risk to those who get them, it would have become very obvious by now in the many studies on heart related deaths that have taken place in the last 40 years or so. I take some comfort in knowing that if pvc's were actually harmful the drug companies would be all over it, producing and pushing drug therapy like mad. The fact that they aren't suggests that pvc's are just a big deal to us, not to medical science.
I hope you feel better soon.
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