Interesting that you posted today. I literally just walked in the door from the Emergency Room (E.R.). Since the Monday after Easter I have been afflicted with ectopics. Strange stuff. A few years ago, towards the end of the day, when I would swallow food but not liquids, I would get 1 PVC each time. Cardiologist said it was a Vagal Response. (We have a Vagus Nerve that slows the heart, and controls facets of digestion, among other things).
The Monday after Easter this year, crazy ectopics all day, and I go to the E.R. They see 3 PVCs occurring for every 1 PAC. I'm usually only bothered by PVCs, so this was unusual. As an added bonus, everytime I swallow, my heart goes insane with ectopics. Of course they didn't see that, I wasn't eating there. The let me go with a diagnosis of a Benign Arrhythmia. The woman doctor suggests that I have a Holter done. My cardiologist looked over the E.R. report, says nothing of concern, don't worry about
it. I asked for a Holter and he obliged, I wore it for 24 hours, panicked while I was wearing it and went to the medical center in my plant (we have 1500 employees). They did an EKG around the electrodes already on my chest for the Holter, they see frequent PVCs, which they proclaim benign.
The Holter results came back in a few days, I had 6000 PVCs in 24 hours. That's an average of 4 per minute. Trust me, I often get many more than 4 per minute, apparently I don't have any or many when I sleep, so the balance is shifted to the daytime hours. The Holter results are screened electronically, it looks for scary stuff and puts aside the routine stuff. If anything was really a problem, the doctor is quickly notified. The results are sent to an independent Cardiologist, one of the better ones in the city, he interprets the significance of the findings and notifies my Cardiologist. Neither one was concerned about
the 6000 PVCs, they look at other factors not just the total number.
Today, plagued again with PVCs, long strings of them, I feel a little odd since with each PVC there is a pause (not all PVCs have pauses though), and my heart rate is slow during the string of them. I'm concerned they may not be PVCs, but actually something they call Bradycardia. The E.R. Doctor (same woman as originally) sees no signs of Bradycardia, or, as she phrased it, escape beats. I was getting tons of PVCs in the E.R., so again, the number of them wasn't important, the nature of them is.
I think my excess ectopics are caused by digestive problems, and the doctor listened to me discuss my views and took some time to view a web page on my phone discussing rhythm disturbances from digestive disturbances. See below.
bjcardio.co.uk/2009/07/cardiac-manifestations-and-sequelae-of-gastrointestinal-disorders/Discussions you may find relief in, I sure did, can be read here:
www.doctorslounge.com/cardiology/forums/backup/topic-15389.htmlwww.drjohnm.org/2013/06/benign-pvcs-a-heart-rhythm-doctors-approach/I hope all this helps, that you realize you're not alone, and that the mere existence of them is not an indication of bad things. Doctors have studied these for years, they don't capriciously let people walk around with dangerous conditions. My discussion was of PVCs but apply to PACs as well. All of this is for people, such as you and I, that had testing to preclude more serious causes. Someone experiencing more than a few ectopics for the first time, or those of us that normally get them (I've had problems on and off for 40 years now) that suddenly experience a worsening of them, should consult with a doctor. I'm actually going to see an E.P. next month.