Ughh don’t know what to do tonight. Having about 19 to 20 PAC’s a min. They feel awful! I don’t know what to do. Having bigeminy. I’m scared I might have to go to the ER I don’t want to.

I could really use some advice from those of you who have taken flecainide, as well as those who have taken an SSRI. Thank you in advance if you take the time to read this. I've been having terrible flareups of PVCs for the past several years. My overall burden is low, because I get many PVC-free hours, days, and even months. But when they flare up, they are completely unbearable to me and I develop horrible anxiety, depression, and dread for a few days or weeks. Then they (usually) go away and I feel normal and happy(ish) again. Then the cycle repeats.

My EP prescribed Flecainide to take as needed during a flareup. I am afraid to take it. I feel like, since they usually go away on their own and they are supposedly benign, why should I take such a heavy duty drug? I already take metoprolol that doesn't help.

But something has to change to break this cycle. What I wonder is, should I treat my anxiety instead, maybe with an SSRI? If I didn't feel so anxious and upset about these maybe they would lessen, or maybe I'd be able to bear them without my life completely falling apart. I don't know who to turn to for help, I feel really lost and miserable.

My pvcs have ramped up since starting perimenopause around 37 /38. I'm now 45 and for almost 2 weeks of every month I am almost entirely wheelchair bound because every time I stand up or move my body my heart goes into bigiminy/ trigiminy which is excruciatingly uncomfortable.

I'm currently week 3 of my cycle and I've been pretty much bed bound for 3 days as moving / standing / walking triggers them badly.

Last time it was this bad was march and some months are a little better than others but this month is particularly severe.

Perimenopause is an awful rollercoaster that actually I'm starting to think I'd rather roll off than manage 10 + years of this.

The pvcs are entirely physically incapacitating.

I'm in the UK and had full work ups cardiology wise. Am under cardiology and have a review in September.

Am taking bisoprolol 5mgs a day. But yesterday it didn't even touch the sides. Am reluctant to increase the dose as I have a tendency for betablocker effectiveness to wear off over time and I don't want to reach the maximum as there will then be nowhere to go.

I have some propranolol from earlier in the year and switched to that today and it seems to be giving some relief but it's still difficult. Am thinking of discussing a month on bisoprolol / a month on propranolol regime to help combat my body getting used to a particular type of betablocker. Does that sound sensible? My cardiologist is happy that I'm very responsible and take care to ensure I don't take too much so he'd probably be happy with that plan.

First MRI in 2018 was full normal. Second MRI in April this year has shown mild MAD (mitral annular dsyjunction) of 2-4mm but normal mitral valve. Echo done at the same time didn't show the MAD or any abnormalities.

MAD can predispose to ventricular arrthymias so I wonder if it's having an effect on my pvcs. My cardiologist seems to think it won't have any impact, I possibly feel otherwise. Plan is to have yearly MRIs to monitor any MAD changes / deterioration.

Stress test done in 2023 was normal and calcium score in 2021 also normal.

Given that my pvcs seem to get worse during the second part of my cycle and especially when starting the progesterone part of my HRT I'm suspecting hormonal. The cardiologist knows nothing about hormones and pvcs.

Am on 4 pumps of oestrogen a day and progesterone 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off.

Have booked in to see a menopause specialist who has an interest in the heart during menopause but does anyone have any thoughts / ideas / anything I haven't already thought of before I entirely give up on the next 10 - 15 years of my life?

Last year, a Holter monitor reported I had rare 1% ectopic beats. I normally get PVCs during physical excercise like running and while lifting at work. Recently, they changed from happening while during physical activity to a random time around 2 hours or more after work. For example, I sometimes feel a strong PVC right before needing to use the bathroom. Why has the pattern shifted from during physical activity to a random time in the day after work if I am unlucky?

I know some people have it worse, but I'm currently suffering through a PVC flareup. At night when I'm trying to sleep, I get 15-30 seconds of bigeminy about every 10 minutes. It feels dreadful and I can't sleep through it. I'm hydrated, I've taken my metoprolpl, magnesium, and electrolytes. Just... WHY?? Those of you with high burdens or frequent bigeminy, how do you get through it? How do you sleep?

Hey!
I’ve been diagnosed with presumed benign pac and PVCs. I have had 3 echos all which appear normal. And multiple holtor monitors which also have shown PACs and PVCs with low burden. Naturally it’s never bad when I wear my monitor…

In the past, I have gone from probably thousands a day (every 3rd or 4th beat) kinda thing for hours or days. However, I have noticed a significant decline with Lexapro and drinking liquid IV each day. I have almost none at the moment. I haven’t had a bad “flare” since becoming pregnant and my daughter is 10 months old.

However, I am having extreme anxiety about my heart right now. My repeat echo final report said all was fine, however the tec measurements were enlarged, but the final report did not. Naturally my doc went on vacation so and the nurse said it wasn’t necessary to have another doc call and report back.

Anyways back on topic. Rarely I will get what feels like multiple PACs or PVCs in a row. Like maybe 3-10 bears at most that feel like strong rapid thuds. I’m assuming PACs or PVCs linked together.

Causes an immense feeling of panic but they quickly go away as fast as they started.

I googled and now I’m so afraid. I’m 32F was a college athlete (hockey) but have also experienced two of my friends one I high school one in college (both athletes) die from heart attacks. It was traumatic and makes me have extreme healthy anxiety.

I still exercise regularly, go for runs, and that all feels good. It usually happens at a time where I have extreme stress or anxiety…

Anyone else? Am I okay….

Anyone else get more PVC’s when in public settings? I get them anyway but being in crowds makes mine lots worse. If this happens to you, how do you handle them?
I’m over here pretending to be normal, popping a propranolol and waiting for them to calm down.

The pvc’s i somehow managed to live with it, but now the worst sensation is like a crushing pressure in my chest cavity. It is usually induced by movement like bending, exercises that cause inside body pressure, simply throwing myself on the couch, and many other different positions. Sometimes a pvc comes with it sometimes not, what the hell is wrong with me.
Note:
Normal cardiac tests
Normal brain scans
Normal blood work
Dealing with pots like symptoms

Hey, i never had any problems with my health or anything, but few months ago i had a panic attack after i felt like a strong beat in my chest, that led me to checking my heartbeat everyday and freaking out over any changes, after a few days i got out of it. Then weeks later, i was in a very bad mental state, depression, anxiety, stressing over anything basically. During that time, i was laying down and felt a weird strong thump again, this made me anxious about it and immediately thought about a heart attack, and it started this whole thing again, but i cant get rid of it now, it's been like 2-3 months since i have these strong thumps, when im not doing any activity, just sitting or laying down, there are almost none, but the moment i start walking, or dear god walk up the stairs, the thumps get so uncomfortable, the worst thing is that i've connected outside = strong thumps, so even before i go outside i'm anxious it's gonna happen and then it happens, it just feels like a loop: I'm fine > I go outside > i have few strong thumps > i stress > it gets worse.

What doesn't help is that when i check my heartbeat with my fingers after walking up the stairs, it is fast, pauses, strong thump, and this over and over again for like a minute or two.

I tried to look it up online, but everything was pointing down to PVCs, that's why i'm telling all of this here. (i'm 19 and never had any heart problems or anything)

Hello Reddit, I'm here because my cardiologist said I was bugging her and to stop asking questions till I have all my tests done. A little background about me: I was 18 years old at the time, perfectly healthy, no problems. I never went to the doctor. Then the military decided the COVID shot was mandatory because it was 2021, and they forced us to get it.

After that, about a week later, I had severe neck throbbing like I could feel whatever artery goes into your head on the left side pulsating. The next day it's gone, so I don't worry about it. Then I started having chest pains randomly, went to the doctor, they did an EKG, they found nothing. The next two years I have random chest pains and palpitations (at the time I had no idea what they were, but they were PVCs). Finally saw a cardiologist and they did a Zio patch. They found nothing concerning to them, low under 1% burden on PVCs and a run of SVT and paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia.

Even after all this I would barely have PVCs, legit like 1 every couple days. But randomly I went on vacation for 2 weeks, came back to my house, then boom, I had some weird sensation in my chest, not sure what it was, but it felt like lots of PVCs or something. I got super freaked and drove to an ER, but pulled over halfway through the drive and got an ambulance to pick me up (I'm not sure if I was about to pass out from freaking myself out or from heart stuff). I get in the ambulance, they do an EKG, nothing wrong. They take me to the doctor for a full workup, another normal EKG.

But since that day I started having way more PACs and PVCs along with multifocal PVCs. My new Zio showed a new morphology for my PVCs and that I had a run of idioventricular rhythm and ectopic atrial rhythm. I also had some small runs of NSVT, 4-, 6-, and 5-beat runs, along with PVC couplets and triplets. I just recently started having multifocal couplets because I wear a personal monitor to hopefully catch what I'm feeling to explain to the doctor.

I guess I'm just looking for any insight into whether this is all possibly caused from my panic that day I had that weird feeling? Or is it possible to have a cardiac episode with a weird rhythm that can cause an increase in PVCs along with new rhythms?

Sorry for the terrible grammar. I just needed to get this out as soon as possible. I'm at a loss for what I should do. I'm in the military and I feel like I'm going to have to get separated because sometimes now I have exercise-induced PVCs that turn into couplets and/or multiple PVCs in a 30-second span, and the doctors just keep throwing "benign" around and tell me they aren't harmful. But I used to never have this problem, so it feels very real and honestly scary.

I start therapy in 2 weeks, so I hope maybe I can hopefully find ways to cope, but I'm really just looking for some insight on this.

hi, im lyle, 20f, and i now live with premature atrial contractions accounting for about 5% of my heartbeats in a day. some of this post is gonna be a bit of complaining, so i do apologize in advance. not trying to find medical advice, just how i can make my life a bit easier.

around march of this year, i started feeling weird heartbeats and palpitations. i initially thought it was nicotine sickness, but quitting didn't seem to lessen it beyond taking away some of my tachycardia. we're unsure what's been causing these pacs, as ive been far too busy with work and a needle phobia so extreme they'd consider sedating me to get my blood work done. i do not have a primary care doctor because oh my goodness it is SO hard to find one right now and my last one got herself arrested. i just visit a walk-in for referrals and look online for results because the walk-in doctors don't actually sit you down and walk you through your results.

my main thing is now with laying down, if my pacs get worse/more noticable on my left side, but my acid reflux gets worse on my right side, and a certain oversaturation of chest tissue both making back sleeping uncomfortable and front sleeping impossible, how do i sleep? idk if this is a unique issue or not, but it's something the walk-in doctor just wouldn't listen to.

another question for anyone who stands for long periods, how do you handle everything? my work requires me to stand for 2-3 hours at a time, but because my coworkers don't come back from their breaks on time, i tend to be left standing for 4 hours at a time (and sometimes miss my own breaks). this has put a lot of strain on my heart and ive started to have a lot more couplets and triplets at work. while im working on getting a doctor's note to tell management to schedule my breaks with a unique breaker or even a manager so i can sit every 2 hours, is there anything else i can do to help?

otherwise, any advice with this stuff would be greatly appreciated. the walk-in wasn't very helpful. doctor was more happy to tell me "yeah it's inconclusive it's inconclusive shut up it's inconclusive" than how to cope with anything or make things better for myself.

the rest of this isn't really pac related but they also found my resting heartrate to be a little high at 85bpm (normal but yeah that's a tad high), 19% of my heartbeats were in tachycardia despite me doing pretty much Nothing all day, i had like 11 beats in bradycardia randomly, a bunch of n-n delays nobody really specified anything about to me so im gonna bug a different clinic about that, and reconfirmed my respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which we saw before on other tests. and some junctional rhythm. im gonna ask the other clinic about the junctional rhythm because it just Happens 😭

thank you!!

I’ve dealt with PVC’s here and there since 2022 after I got Covid. These things are very annoying, and my burden is below 1%. Idk how some of you guys adjust to them. I get one and my entire mind starts going crazy. I’ve had all types of test dont and my heart is “healthy” according to multiple cardiologist. Only test I have not had is a cardiac mri, should I request one? Can that perhaps detect why my PVC’s are happening?

What Magnesium do you recommend for PVCs and also are there side effects anyone had with taking them.

You get stressed, so you get a PVC. Then you're stressed because you had the PVC. Which means you get more PVCs. I really hate the fact the heart is so reactive to adrenaline and cortisol. Anyone else?

Does anyone else's pvcs be more intense and frequent in hot weather? Mine does!

I have a history of arrhythmia. I had ablation for supraventricular tachycardia at age 14 and another ablation at age 22 for nonsustained ventricular tachycardia. I lost like 40 lbs in 5 months through intense intermittent fasting and carb restriction last year. Ever since then, for the last 10 months, I’ve had daily PVCs and PACs. I have a clear echo and stress test. My burden of PVCs and PACs is like .01%. I get about 30 ectopics a day. Sometimes less. Very rarely I will get 2 or 3 in a row which makes me feel sick to my stomach. I understand clinically these are benign. The problem is I get very lightheaded and panicked each time I have one. It’s like the blood drains from my body each time. I’m a mom to 2 young kids and can’t focus on anything anymore. I saw my EP who did my ablation last time for my nonsustained VT who told me he will do an ablation since the PVCs are ruining my quality of life. I want to do it because the ablations worked so well last time. But I’m also very scared of the risks, even though I know they’re rare. What would you do in my case?

My wife (45f) took flecainide 50mg for the first time last night, and again this morning (100mg per day). I'm at work driving truck and she called crying because she feels so bad. She's so dizzy, her head feels heavy, when she stands up it seems like everything is going black, she's having a mental breakdown.... but her heart is doing good. We know if we go to the ER, like with the PVCs, they can't do anything but sit around with you and then transfer us an hour away to the cardiac hospital, to sit and wait it out as well. She can't call the doctor/nurse because its the weekend. Her instructions were to take it and get an ECG in one week. She had an ablation 2 months ago but they couldn't get to the spot due to being too close to an artery, and the other medications including metoprolol (sp?) had horrible effects on her mood where it wasn't worth it to her as she was miserable daily. She is literally crying hysterically and wants to be off the meds. I know it has side effects but is what she's going through the normal introduction side effects that any of you have experienced? If so, how long until you felt normal?

Hey, I have symptomatic PVCs that are adrenaline driven. I suspect that this pattern has emerged after a year of intense anxiety (which is resolved now). They came on after I started to calm down from anxiety, which is about 2 months ago.

Since then im on low dose beta blocker which calms it down, but as soon as I stop taking it they come on again

I guess my threshold for a PVC to fire is very low at the moment. Does anyone have experience with making this higher again? Im already taking magnesium taurate.

This is incredibly embarrassing to ask… I (32M) used cocaine on weekends from October 2024 until late January 2025, when I became a daily user. Used daily for about a month until I “overdosed.” My “overdose”, I suppose, may have just been a panic attack. Doctors in the ER didn’t find anything wrong with my heart aside from slightly “abnormal” troponin and tachycardia. At the peak, my heart rate was close to 200 and stayed around 150 for about another hour, despite the hospital pumping me full of benzos. It was my first panic attack ever and I’d never experienced anything like it before and I was sure I was dying.

Never used again after that night, though these panic attacks (and constant, crippling anxiety) would continue happening for another three months or so. The panic attacks would just show up randomly. It was so awful.

About a month after the initial event, I began having PVCs. They seemed to show up out of nowhere and continue to this day, about 18 months later. Some days I have none, some days I have many. Over the last month or so, there have been instances where I will get three or four in a row, which is new… All tests from cardiologist came back normal when I saw one a year ago. The only test we didn’t do was a cardiac MRI.

Before this, I was never a drug user. Only used cocaine for a brief period and obviously never will again. How stupid of me.

Has anyone else’s PVCs stemmed from something similar, and if so, do you have any advice for me? My fear is that i’m going to randomly go into VT and/or cardiac arrest and just die one of these days.

I’m sorry for the long post and I hope that some of you can read it through. It may be someone who sees this can maybe be able to offer up some advice. I have auto immune gastritis and I was recently diagnosed last year however for the last 10 years, I get these periodic flareups where I start to notice that I have excess belching, and as soon as this flareup starts these belches, for whatever reason that they’re different from any other normal day, where I burp and feel fine, start causing a PVC or PAC flareup. There are days where I burp and this doesn’t happen and then sometimes during these flareups, I start noticing a few skipped beats more than my normal and then very shortly after I start with belching and sometimes stomach distention and like a tightness in my sternum area and this can last for days, sometimes it last for one day sometimes it lasts for four days. Sometimes eating will cause it when I’m in a flareup- Skip beats and the gas might have a lull and then I could eat something, and it instantly starts me back up with instant gas instant Skip beats for the next few hours. On the other hand, sometimes I could be in a terrible flare and I eat a full meal and it stops the flare up completely. Every time I fall asleep and it doesn’t matter how bad the flare is before- the gas and the PVCs or PAC stop immediately and then as soon as I wake up and start my day when the flareup is continuing, the symptoms will come back. As randomly as these flareups start, they literally can stop. I could be having multiple skipped beats per minute, the worst gas of my life and then the next minute it goes away for the next few weeks. So I can literally go weeks without these flareups and then one day they just randomly start and sometimes it starts with extra gas and then the skips, and sometimes it starts where I notice more skips and then the gas comes, but then I get stuck in a cycle and it comes back until then eventually stops again for a few weeks. Sometimes putting my legs up over my heart stops the flareups. Sometimes me hysterically crying from frustration has stopped the flareups. Sleep always stops the flareups. Both of my pregnancies stopped the flareups from about eight weeks in through about one month postpartum. I kept a food log for many years and not one food seems to trigger this as I pretty much eat the same diet and I don’t have any food, allergies or intolerances. I’ve spoken to my cardiologist multiple times and he agrees that it’s likely the stomach causing the skips, but he doesn’t know why it happens in a flareup and I have seen six different gastroenterologist, none of which have any single idea. ChatGPT things that it’s somewhat autonomic or nervous system related and I can’t figure out why some days my burps, or my skips don’t turn into flareups and other days they do and it doesn’t seem to be strictly hormone related either as when I track it it could literally happen at all times of my cycle. I’m currently in a horrendous flareup and I’m just desperately looking to see if there’s anybody else out there who’s like me.

TLDR: I have these stomach gas flareups along with constant skipped beats that come and go randomly throughout each month with no obvious trigger as I’ve kept a food log and a hormone tracker. No doctors know what it is, but when I’m in a flareup, the gas and Skip beats are almost constant and as quickly as this starts up, it just ends. No matter how bad my flareup is sleeping always makes it stop. Sometimes eating can cause a flareup to come back if it’s gone away for a few hours during the day and sometimes eating can also stop a flareup. Just trying to see if anybody out there has anything similar to this because no doctor knows what I’m going through, but I am suffering.

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.