← Return to Fears about ectopic heart beats and PSVT's. Doctor not concerned.

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Profile picture for susieq1957 @susieq1957

@gloaming My heart rate has never been above 100 BPM longer than a few minutes. When I wore the 7 day event monitor it was only in tachycardia a few seconds twice, the rest of the time it was in regular beats per minute. I will never take a beta blocker or anti arryhmic drug, I don't need them. I just want reassurance that the ectopic heart beats are not sinister, I know the ER doc says they aren't, but they feel so weird, it's hard to believe they're not.

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Replies to "@gloaming My heart rate has never been above 100 BPM longer than a few minutes. When..."

@susieq1957 I gotcha. The medical community had decided that it is only when the burden (that's the term, 'burden') of ectopy reaches about 10% of all beats in a 24 hr period that they need to figure something out to ensure your longevity. There is some variation on that number, with some recent papers suggesting that the burden greater than 3% is not to be discounted for some patients who will do more poorly at that burden over time.
https://www.emjreviews.com/en-us/amj/cardiology/article/ectopic-beats-how-many-count/
So, ectopy and AF are semi-benign if they don't involve RVR, high sustained HR, and their total in a 24 hour period doesn't exceed 2% of all countable beats. It is when the patient presents with complaints about how they make that patient feel, how imposing or debilitating the arrhythmia is, that an EP will offer to try to ablate the tissue causing the extra beats. IOW, as much as the burden may be getting up there, a sympathetic cardiologist and EP will want their patients to feel and to live as normal as possible. Symptoms count! Quality of life counts. My EP asked me each time he saw me, 'We can control your heart with meds if you are interested, or I can try to ablate you and we'll see how that works.' He was making it clear, persistently, that I had options and needn't choose one over the other on HIS say-so. In turn, I always responded that ectopy made my life a living hell, and that I didn't want to run an endless series of trials hoping one AAD (anti-arrhythmic drug) would work well and long enough to make my existence a thing.

Once again, the science currently holds that ectopy offering less than a 2% burden is not likely to harm a patient.