Managing and Living With PACs and PVCs

I don't have any stomach issues with dosage.

I just had another Holter test. It showed 5.5% PACs. Is this alot? Sure feels like it. See cardiologist next week. I'd like to try the taurine and l-arginine.

Your burden becomes a factor in your predicted longevity when it exceeds 1%. Recent studies show that there is a marked increase in all-cause mortality attributable to PACs when their number exceeds 76 in any 24 hour period. You're well above that.

Note that a great many people live with 200-400 PACs every day and they just get used to it. Some cannot...no way...no how. This is where you ask your cardiologist how much stock she places in your symptomology and its impact on your sense of well-being. What does SHE think or take as a burden beyond which intervention should be undertaken? Make it clear that what you are experiencing is deeply unsettling, and that you'd like his/her help to reduce the numbers, including to zero, and including an ablation.

Thank you for the info. It sure does affect my daily life, I'm exhausted all the time and don't even want to socialize. I'll make sure I emphasize how life altering this is when I see her next week.

I have same thing. I've had echo, stress test, heart cath you name it, I've had it. I do take metoprolol 25mg. I was on atenolol but another doctor said that the metoprolol was better. I might have one a week and my resting heart rate is about 50 also. My cardiologist said EVERYONE has PVC's and PAC's, even he has them. The PAC's are more normal. It's just that some people are very in tune with their body and can feel every one they have. He said I only needed to worry if I had something like 50 in 10 seconds or so. Having one then another in 5 minutes is nothing. Sometimes it helps to either cough or bear down like you're having a bowel movement or baby and it causes the heart to reset so to speak. When everything else heart related comes back normal then I know it's just a glitch that isn't harmful. Much like tourettes in some people, it's just an annoyance. Even when they've put me on a monitor in the ER I will hear the nurse say I'm throwing PVC's. I do take a very low dose of xanax because when I get excited or a sudden scare, my heart goes crazy. I can get excited telling a story and can feel my heart start to flutter. The xanax is to keep the anxiety level down so my heart stats calm.

Isn't taurine an ingredient in dry cat food? It just sounded like it. Lol. I take metoprolol and might have a PVC once a week. I also take magnesium per my cardiologist

I have 20,000-30,000 PACs a day and have hit the end of the line for meds. They all either stopped working or were awful. I feel like maybe Taurine/Arginjne would have helped early in but have had them for so long now that ablation will be the only answer.

@carol1024
Great information and advice. I too have had it all. I take a medicine called Metrizine. It helps with VTAC.

Every cariologist says same as you said. Everyone will have PVCs and PACs and are quite normal. Some like you and I are tuned in to them thus we feel them more than others. I have an ICD/Pacemaker and have had shocks. So when I have a lot of PVCs I fear the shocks not the PVCs.

Going to knock on wood but since they turned off my exercise mode on my pacemaker I have not had a shock now it almost two years. I was advised by my EP (Director of Electrophysiology at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville) to take 400 mg of Magnesium. It really did help with PACs and PACs one I got on the right form of it.

There are many methods to help with PACs and PVCs as you mentioned. Val salva along with what you mentioned. Most caridologist can train you on them to help stopped them when you feel them.

The only time PVCs bother me now is when I have two together. I have accepted going to have them and thus that reduces your stress and anxiety which also trigger them. So not only treat medically but mentally.

What form of magnesium do you take?

I’ve had 2 ablations for junctional PVCs mostly without much effect. My PVC load has been as high as 50%. Only Flecainide (100mgx2/day) gives me relief. Side effects have been more tolerable than the very symptomatic palpitations. My EP has suggested amiodorone which I will consider as Flecainide has become less effective after 2 years. It feels like I’m running out of options.