Please any of my fellow PVC Warriors please help me feel better

It's sorrowing seeing your post. I could tell you you're not alone, but it won't do you a bit of good under your skin. Still, many or all of us responding and reading here have a friend or relative with an arrythmia, or they suffer from it themselves. I am an atrial fibrillation patient, highly symptomatic, but I'm in a sort of remission for the past three years after a successful ablation.

How are you fixed for money? If you have a good support system and could afford to be absent for up to a full week, I could suggest a top EP in Austin who is world-renowned and who specializes in complex cases....and desperate ones. Assuming you are a good candidate, unless you already have been convinced you're not, this gentleman, who travels widely across the globe to teach, to treat VIPs, and has privileges in several USA hospitals spread across the country, is a wizard. I say this because I think you should be absolutely ruled out as a candidate for an ablation by the world's best EPs before you throw in your towel.

Have recent blood tests shown any CRP, or electrolytes out of the normal range (might also be too high, not too low!!!) Are you under any kind of duress that might elevate your adrenal response and raise serum cortisol?

@kpryor1982
I am not going to say your 500-700 is not an issue for you but it is not a extremely high number. PVCs are quite common and almost everyone has them. One cause is anxiety and stress.

I have 1-2 PVCs every 10 seconds. Good days it when I go 30 seconds without one. So on average I have 20 thousand PVCs a day. My PVCs come from 3 different areas in my LV. I would really like to have your 500-700 a day on your bad days as would be good days for me.

I assume you had a Holter monitor and they know where coming from and how much affecting your heart.

Speaking as a non medical doctor but having an outstanding electrophysiologist at Mayo Jacksonville everyone has PVCs. And for some it really creates anxiety and stress even random ones that are normal. The amount you are having is being caused by something but again the number of PVCs you have on bad days is not extreme.

What I can tell you from your post and the guidance I have received from my doctors is you are under a lot of stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety will per my medical experts cause PVCs. And an increase in PVCs will cause more stress and thus more PVCs. You have 5 boys. Are you raising them alone. If not talk to your partner about your stress and anxiety. Maybe making some time alone for yourself if kids are not in school. Do you work? What type work do you do.

With your doctors permission do you like any type of exercise? Do your kids go to school leaving you some personal time? If you like to exercise it will greatly help with stress and anxiety. Simple walking is great just find a relaxing place to do it. Ride a bike makes you feel like a kid again. I do water aerobics 5 days a week. It is only an hour and done to music and really relaxes me and I find it fun to do.

Don't like exercise. How about a hobby you think you would like doing? I will tell you my electrophysiologist encourage me to exercise as I enjoy it and says will help with PVCs. Have you tried deep breathing exercises? How about YOGA that you can do in front of TV.

From your post it seems your high PVCs are not all the time and come and go. To me that is a trigger not a constant problem and need to address the trigger. Do you find them go up during times of stress and anxiety. If so talk to your doctors and therapist about medications, life style changes, exercise, hobbies, deep breathing techniques.

I can tell you I was a mess with so many PVCs at one time. Every 10 beats I would have 1-2 PVCs. Now they average 1 every 10 seconds but a lot of time I can go 30-60 seconds without one. When they are close or one after another that is when I start to stress out. I can feel it and will do deep breath through my stomach, pursed my lips and slowly breath out. I do that several times and it calms me down.

I see you are taking a hydration pack. Do you know that to much potassium or magnesium can be detrimental your your heart and electrical system? Make sure your EP and cardiologist know you are taking magnesium and also a hydration packet.

I take a medicine called mexiletine that really helped lower my Tachycardia and PVCs. Again, 500-700 a day is not extreme. I wish I had hose numbers. A normal day for me is around 20K and sometimes when under stress much higher.

Try those deep breathing (you can look up yoga breathing or deep breathing for relaxation) and talk to your doctors about exercise (find something you like to do) and if not into exercise look at hobbies.

What help me was lifestyle changes
1.less caffeine
2.for stress I let go an let GOD
3. medications
4. had an ablation
5. taking care of sleep apnea
but what HELP the most 2-5 letting go & getting sleep

@jc76 About 3 yrs after ablation for aflutter/fib I starting experiencing a lot of PVCs/PACs in 2024. Over 20% ofbeats were PAC/PVCs my pcp and EP both echoed what you said ‘everyone has irregular beats no big deal’ but my burden was causing me symptoms like the mom in this thread, I referred to this condition as AFIB lite’
My EP did mention in passing to keep my TSH on the high side - I taken synthetic thyroid hormone due to removal of cancerous thyroid many years ago. After I adjusted levothyroxind dose to achieve higher TSH, the arrhythmia went away. Being skeptical of coincidence I changed back to old dosage TSH came down and arrhythmias returned. Lowered TSH again and I’m arrhythmia free. In reading on articles the link between arrhythmias and too much hormone (=low TSH, so called hyperthyroidism) is well established medical finding. I’m surprised after all these years learning about my condition I never read about this relationship before.

@jc76 thank you for all of your information I do exercise. I walk at least 20 minutes a day and I also work on my feet all day seven days a week delivering groceries through Shipt and Spark to people’s homes. I am a single mom at this point and in between getting a new place and living near my ex trying to coparent there’s a lot of stresses in my life for sure but I’ve dealt with these PVCs since I was 22 and I’ve gone a full year without any to really mention maybe one or two here in there I just recently started taking weight loss shots, so my doctor is aware of my hydration packet since I’m not eating that much and to keep my electrolytes balance, which I do get electrolyte panels every few weeks on the shots I’ve lost 31 pounds in the last six weeks and I know that’s a huge weight loss and maybe can be affecting my heart but I noticed my PVCs got way worse once I gained all this weight. I had a premature baby at 28 weeks and spent three months living in a hospital room and I gained 60 pounds out of stress and that was 2 1/2 years ago and I have struggled to get the weight off since my electro physiologist believes that if I get my weight down and exercise more, then I will possibly not have as many, but I’ve had a Holter monitor and a bit monitor multiple times everything from my cardiac MRIs bloodwork to test are all normal every time all of my doctor say my blood work is pristine and my heart is perfect so it’s so hard for me to mentally except that I’m OK especially with panic disorder. My brain immediately goes to well if your heart is doing this that’s not normal because there’s so many people in my life that I know that are like Kim that’s not normal. My heart doesn’t do that and I say maybe you don’t feel it but everybody’s heart does it it’s just I feel every single one. I’m not lucky enough to not feel it. I am aware of every heartbeat in my body and it’s really hard because I mean it’s a good thing that I know what’s going on in my body, but then to feel every single little extra fee is excruciating for someone with my level of panic and anxiety. I do take magnesium potassium supplements which seem to help for those three weeks I had added potassium under my doctors recommendation and that’s what I thought help them go away but now even on the metoprolol, potassium magnesium and anxiety medicine. I still have that terrible run the last two days usually when I lay flat and go to bed, I get a reprieve from them the next day for half a day or so and towards nighttime, they come back, but the last two days have been really taking a toll on my mind and then I want to shut down and not do anything and I lay there and I count the beats of my heart and then I put on a timer and then it’s just so extreme how I start hyper fixating on it so yesterday, though a few things that were a win for me was not going to the ER finishing my workday regardless of how many I was having and still exercising so I called that a win

@chickenfarmer I have suffered with my thyroid since 2010 myself and it’s always been on a higher side considered hypothyroid well recently. My doctor checked it and it was down to .9 and he told me to stop taking my 88 µg of levothyroxine since I was starting to lean towards hyperthyroid so that could have an effect here and I might need to research that because I was taking it for years and I switched PCP’s and maybe he didn’t realize I don’t know. Maybe I needed to come off of it because it did get to hyper level but maybe it’s gone too far the other way I’m not sure what to do so I’ll ask him next time I go in and have that rechecked, but I was very surprised. The number was so low because I’ve always been on the higher side for my thyroid even on medication.

@bigj yes thank you for your response. I don’t have sleep apnea. I am on medication. I have been getting more sleep recently I haven’t had caffeine in over two years and I’m starting to try to let go and let God I’ve been praying more and trying to meditate. I just have a really high anxiety level and was diagnosed with panic disorder when I was in my early 20s so when it to altogether, I just get so overwhelmed.

@chickenfarmer
I too take a thyroid medication. It is not much 1/2 a tablet. I think the name thyroxine.

Did I read your post right. When you raised your TSH arrhythmia went away?

I got confused when I read "Lowered TSH again and I’m arrhythmia free."

Do you remember any of the articles you read so I could research also.

Hypo = low. Low thyroxin = low performance by the thyroid gland.
Hyper = high. Too much thyroxin, means the thyroid is over-stimulated by too much hormone.

As far as I know, without having researched it formally myself, either way, left too long, left too extreme, is bad for the heart and can lead to arrhythmia.
https://www.cardiovasculardiseasehub.com/archives/21640

@kpryor1982 stress is definitely a trigger so I recommend you work on reducing as much as possible. When I get stressed I find that a funny book or show helps. Some people use meditation. I used to think caffeine was a trigger but lately I’ve read a lot of drs saying caffeine is not a trigger and is actually positive. I’ve found a lot of good info on website StopAfib