Just diagnosed with PACS and I'm scared

@muppet7777 Why an echo, and what specifically do you hope it will either eliminate or confirm? Just curious to understand your thinking on this.

If you have an arrhythmia that could be attributable to ischemia, as an example of what to look for, then a contrast dye CT scan might help, or an angiogram, an MRI, Doppler ultrasound of the carotid arteries can pinpoint changes in speed at the 'pinch point's if there is stenosis due to atherosclerotic plaque buildup. I don't know that plain ol' PACs have a root in ischemia. They might be a sign of mitral valve prolapse, of cardiomyopathy, hypertension that causes eventual hypertrophy of the ventricles....just as guesses, but they all require assessments and imaging to confirm.

I guess just reassurance that my heart is structurally sound. Told you im a worrier. If i get a positive Echo than maybe my anxieties will subside 😔

@muppet7777 I can sympathize as I did a lot of pacing in order to calm myself when I was in AF. The missus and I would be watching TV, I'd bend over to pick up something dropped, and the internal visceral pressure would set my heart off. I'd have to stand up and walk around the house, at which my wife knew I had just gone into AF. After a horrible final six months when an EP agreed to ablate me, people told me I looked grey before the procedure. Not good. But, time passes, a good surgeon gets you back into NSR during day surgery (it starts before 0600 hrs so you can be at the ward hallway waiting to be called in to change and have an IV put in in case you have to be switched up and go first). You're home that night and you begin to calm and experience a calm heart once again. I needed two ablations to get there, but the second one got me into NSR now 37 blissful months. A good EP can help to check PACs as well.

Im very happy to hear that are feeling much better!

I had some really troubling PAC and PVC for a year or three, and was definitely under-diagnosed and under-treated, and find that Holter monitoring doesn't care about them at all no matter what the percentages, and saw several PCPs and a couple of cardiologists and they all just shrugged. Frankly I thought they were all idiots. One PCP said he could connect me with a heart rhythm specialist but that didn't even sound like a referral and it was my turn to shrug, if my PCP (with some extra cardiac badges) said it was OK I'd go with it.

Well they were this much right, eventually things got better. Nothing worse happened. I survived.

One more aspect of my story, fwiw. I did a nutrition survey of myself and decided maybe I was short some iodine and it turns out vitamin A. It seems beta carotene is way out of favor now. But I did start taking a multivitamin to cover what I needed and the rest for good luck. Also added "baby carrots" to my diet, just one or two per day. And my PAC/PVC improved at that point by about 98%. I've never heard of any linkage from diet to arrhythmias, though one can posit several possibilities, but that's my story!

Maybe i better buy some carrots 😃

@muppet7777
Hey Muppet, it is entirely normal to have anxiety with any heart-related health problem, ...welcome to the club. Do your best to not let it overwhelm you. A visit to a cardiologist should help you figure out your next steps, ....don't worry, medication, echocardiogram, stress test or??? ...there are a lot of tests a cardiologist could ask for. I think a two week heart monitor, such as the Zio Patch, would give your cardiologist a better idea of what is going on. ....something you could ask about anyway as 24 hours of monitoring does not really give you a full picture of what is going on and you probably had increased anxiety for those 24 hours.
Check in again after you get some results back, ...or just reach out; this is a great group that could help set your mind at ease.
All the best!

@aard Thank you so much for your reply. I hoping after my Family Doctor appointment that he can get me a referral to a Cardiologist. It will probably take months. Im going to write down what you said so that i cant bring it up at my appointments. It feels like my anxiety is a huge cause but i need to know more.
Thanks again!!

@carbcounter I was in a similar situation in 2024 - so many PACs that I referred to my condition as Afib lite, my EP suggested I adjust my thyroid hormone. After some experimenting with dosage the PACs went away.

@nevets .....I must reply to Muppets. My palpitations have almost gone away. I'm taking meditation classes, lorazepam and practicing control of my vagus nerve through food and exercise. I'm 75 and very healthy. I've brought this on myself but am determined to take take better care of the mind body connection. I was so scared. I had heart palpitations at night for 52 days. I will soon get a monitor just in case.