PVC's

@blue717
You really do need a good cardiologist or even better an electrophysiologist (EP) regarding PVCs causes, treatments, and guidance to you.

I have had them for over 25 years. I have an ICD/Pacemaker due to low EF (ejection fraction) and low pulse rate. I can tell you over the 25 years dealing with PVCs and PACs stress and anxiety definitely play a critical role in causing initial PVCs and really can cause additional PVCs. This critical role is what my HF and EP tell me constantly as an additional cause.

It is called the fright or flight syndrome. Your body will react to stress, anxiety, worry, and created more adrenaline to get you ready for flight or fight. If you don't do either then the adrenaline builds up and can cause the increase in PVCs that you are experiencing. The above comes from my EP at Mayo Jacksonville and my heart failure (HF) doctor at Mayo.

Now what can you do? What I am told(and it does help) is find an exercise (with doctors approval) that you like to do and do it. It will help to lesson your anxiety and remove stress. Don't like to exercise find a hobby. Anything that brings a smile to your face is going to help you with anxiety and stress.

Asked your doctors about taking magnesium (OTC). My EP has me on 400 mg a day. Magnesium per my EP helps calm heart, affect electrical function, and can lesson PVCs.

I know hard to not focus on your heart when you have PVCs and PACs. But that very focus makes you feel them more and thus the anxiety and stress that follows from heart focus. That is why I suggested an exercise you like to do or a hobby that you enjoy. By doing so your mind is on something else you are enjoying not heart focus.

I do water aerobics 5 days a week. I found exercising to music and others around me enjoying the classes so refreshing and hard to be in heart focus. Exercise is good for you physically and mentally and can burn of that adrenaline you build up with stress and anxiety.

A hobby can do wonders also. Your mind is on your hobby and not heart focus. FDR did almost an hour every day even during WWII working on his stamp collection. History books write about how important was to him and how much he enjoyed it. He was also an avid swimmer. As you can imagine he was under tremendous stress during WWII.

Can you drive to a medical facility or office that has experienced and wide practice in electrophysiology and cardiology? I drove 4 hours each way to see my Mayo EP and my Mayo HF doctors. I eventually moved to a Del Webb in the area of Jacksonville where now I am only 30 minutes away.

Even if you have to drive to a center or excellence I would suggest you try. If you go to a Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, John Hopkins, etc. they will work with your doctors locally. But you need experienced and knowledgeable cardiologist who treat PVCs and PACs, their causes, and the treatment of them.

It is quite likely that your heart arrhythmia is temporary and that it can be easily corrected, just maybe not in the next six weeks. You're under a lot of strain, and your heart is becoming cranky for all the cortisol and adrenalin it is being subjected to all day long. Your sleep is crappy, your diet not much better, and you may be generally and chronically dehydrated because you're not calm and able to attend to the usual cues about what to do to take care of yourself more calmly and 'better.' (Is this ringing a bell? If not, please disregard...I'm only guessing by what you describe of your circumstances).

When we being to burn the candle at both ends, usually under unique or unusual circumstances, and usually being reactive to inordinate stressors and having to do a lot of 'fancy footwork' when you're not used to all that pressure and urgency, you can go light on fluids, lose electrolytic balance and levels, spend too much time ramped-up thinking of ways to restore yourself to a normal life and to help those whose need is greatest (often not yours!)

Also, when you're getting beyond yourself, you sleep 'different'. It may even bring on temporary or permanent obstructive or central sleep apnea. Sleep apnea, all by itself, can cause the heart to enter a tachyarrhythmia...happened to me.

You may need the temporary services of a health nurse/coach/outreach program in the local community to help you to self-monitor better and to keep your feet under you so that you can help your loved one(s) more strongly and effectively. Or, recognize that now, for the time being, it has to be about you until YOU get as close to whole as you'll ever be over the next few years.

Stress brings on PVC's for me. Try to quiet out and relax via music or atmosphere.

@gloaming Wow, what an informative and compassionate response. Thank you so very much.

@jc76 Thank you for your advice, and you are absolutely right. I am definitely down the rabbit hole with not much to distract me except for more problems. You are so fortunate to be a Mayo patient. I have tried, but I never get past the first phone call. I think I will try again. Mayo Jax would be about 1 1/2 hours for me, but I really wouldn't mind, because it's Mayo. Right now, I am being treated by the Advent system, whose cardiologist did an EKG and an echo and will see me back in a year!! Again, thank you for the information and the time you took to write.

@blue717
Mayo Jacksonville has a patient advocacy. Maybe you could contact them about being seen at Mayo Jacksonville. Even asked for a second opinion versus on going patient. That is how I got in initially. I came to get a second opinion.

Maybe a mentor monitoring discussions could provide a connection or number to call. Keep trying. I live in Nocatee Florida and it is a Del Webb. Only about 5% of the residents are at Mayo. Why? It is Medicare. Mayo limits the number of Medicare insurance patients. And they accept very few Medicare Advantage patients.

I with you luck and keep positive mental attitude as much as you can. Just know millions of us have the same symptoms and find ways to help you. Asked your medical providers about the magnesium OTC.