hello everyone
i have been suffering with ectopic beats for almost 6months now, they are honestly the worst thing i could imagine due to their unpredict ability.
My experience is as follows
- i get them around 30 times a day mainly when i am moving outside or laughing hard or when i get anxious as if it occurs when there is a spike inadrenaline or excitement of any form. they give me a sinking feeling in my stomach like when a rollercoaster drops, my heart skips a beat and it feels lik e my heart is about to stop or go erratic and thats when i feel like i am about to die.
- the ectopics can be followed by lightheadedness or my stomach feeling unease as if its moving around in my abdomen
- they tend to not happen when i am staying still or resting such as resting on a sofa
- i also noticed that i get these ectopic beats when i am changing position in bed sometimes
- tachycardia can happen from time to time where my heart rate hovers around 100-120 for a little bit, often i feel breathless or light headed when this happen.
- i sometimes wake up feeling with strong palpitation and elevated resting heart rate around 88-110 for no reason straight up from sleeping. although this doesnt happen often as my ectopic beats
- heavy meals can sometimes trigger them
i have seen a cardiologist and did a ecg monitoring and waiting for those results now. I wanted to hear from your guys, if you suffered something similar or know how to deal with it. i am only 21 and really dont know how i am supposed to cope withthis feeling as i truly feel scared all the time. it has stopped me from taking up an active lifestyle as i am scared it can trigger an erratic heart rate.
i have stopped any caffiene or fizzy drinks and reduced my sugar intakes.
people dont believe how much it has impacted my life when i tell them about and was hopingi could find some people who understand
thank you for reading
30 times a day, I understand, but I've had periods where they were 30 times an hour or more, and 24x7.
My experience has been that the symptoms slowly change over months. I'm also on BP meds, and I added to them arugula for the nitric oxide content - and perhaps that has helped! Beta blockers are one of the BP meds, and they help, too, some.
So do what you can for overall health and try different things that might help, and maybe one of them will.
You will find we understand but consider you fortunate at only 30 times a day. Some people have thousands of ectopic beats a day. They will not kill you but you must beat the stress they are causing you.
I mean, one a day can be more than plenty. One a week. Even just one might be enough to send a reasonable person to the doctor. And then it turns out that in a lot of cases it just feels a lot worse than it "really is", and there's nothing simple to be done about them in any case.
It's very disillusioning to find medicine not as advanced as we could wish for.
Stopping caffeine seems to help many people. One person who used to run most mornings never had them then but they started up again after she stopped.
I understand how you feel! I also suffer from ectopics (my last holter monitor showed over 8,000 per day) and I also suffer from afib. I do not take medication (I am also quite young). I have found the following things helped me a lot (but I am not a dr, so please check with yours):
- yoga
- no coffee
- no alcohol
- exercise daily (I am a runner)
- stopped taking the contraceptive pill (I am female obvs)
- eating as healthily as possible
All basic, no magic. Ectopics really do feel terrible, but I am assured they are harmless. even Afib you can live a normal life with (I have been for over 4 years now). Best of luck, try not to worry (easier said than done I know).
I have been in permanent AF for over four years. Previously I had two cardioversions that stopped it but now my atrium is enlarged and I'm told they will not work because of it.
thank you very much, i hope you get better soon. what are your experiences with betablockers, i have heard they make people feel sick and very tired
thank you very much for your comment, appreciate your time. if you dont mind me asking, did you develop afib at later age due to ectopics or was there another reason. i know that afib occurs in 10% of over 70 so its quite uncommon for younger people.
I've been pretty happy with my beta blocker atenolol - at very small doses! I was prescribed 25mg twice a day, pretty much a minimum dosage (usually it's 50mg once per day). Went home, took the first, and OMG! Heart rhythm seemed locked at like 68bpm whether I was exercising or not. Did not like that at all! So called the doctor, he said it was OK with him if I reduced the dosage. So cut this already tiny pill in half, 12.5mg - ONCE a day. Helps with the heart rhythms and has only minimal side effects - one is it seems to make me dream more vividly.
And it doesn't seem to go the full 24 hours, either, more like 18, so depending on how I'm feeling and what I'm doing I sometimes take a next one earlier. I'm still way under any kind of normal dosing. I have not wanted to, or needed to, simply gone to the twice a day.
In fact I've gone off them entirely several times over the last few years. Normally stopping beta blockers can be difficult, but from such a small dose, I don't seem to have had any real problems. If I have no symptoms for several days and my BP is doing well, or even getting on the low side, I've been able to stop for weeks or even months. But, then it comes back ...
that sounds great, im glad its going well for you. have they affected your ability to exercise or do intense things considering your heart rate remains on the lower spectrum
They don't know what caused the afib (but both ectopics and afib came on at the same time when I was in my 20s). They think genetics is the cause because everything else is perfectly healthy/normal and I am slim and active. No problem at all - if there's anything else you would like to know, feel free to ask :)
As long as the dosage stays small the effects are barely noticeable. For a variety of health reasons my exercise is entirely low-intensity but I seem to have pretty good endurance overall, pulse speeds up pretty much normally as appropriate.
I suddenly started them , wore a holtor for 24 hours and it picked up 9000 in that period . My cardiologist said anything over 5000 in 24 hours and he would medicate. He gave me a beta blocker and a blood pressure medication. I went home and read up on them , decided to take just beta blocker , too strong , felt awful , halved it , took that dose for a while , my ectopics had stopped , but felt tired so halved it again , so talking a 0.25 of a 2.5mg bisoprop tablet and this very small amount is enough , i often forget it . After six months saw cardiologist for check up , no sign of ectopics so he said the small dose was fine . I never took the blood pressure meds because I knew it would go to low , as the beta blockers seem to reduce it too. Just had yearly check , all okay and bp fine too . I felt my ectopics s were bought in by stress, but once you have them they make you stressed , you dont have many , try and relax , have you tried taking magnesium it can help I use the topical because it absorbs easily . Good luck
I know your anxiety from the skipped beats. I've had them on and off for several years now. Sometimes they are few and far between, then other times they are very frequent. They are very depressing to me too. They cause extreme anxiety and when they happen frequently, they seem to drain my energy. Last year my cardiologist sent me home with a holter monitor for an entire month to keep track of my heartbeats. After the month, all he told me is that they are PVC's - pre-ventrical contractions and nothing to worry about. Still I do worry about them. I worry about making plans for an upcoming event because what if on that day I have them frequently. You mention that you think heavy meals can be a trigger and I think you are right. They happen to me sometimes after a heavy meal, or a meal that has heavy spices. I even suspect foods that contain MSG may be a trigger. I ran across an article about something called gastro-cardic syndrome. Something to do with the vagus nerve and acid reflux. I've noticed sometimes when I have the frequent palpitations, if I burp several times, they seem to lessen in frequency. For the past few weeks I've been having the irregular beats quite frequently. Today I called my cardiologist and have an appointment for next week. I hope for some kind of solution... even if it means taking home the holter monitor again. I just had my annual physical - and all was good... slight elevated sugar levels, but cholesterol numbers are good. I talked to him about the irregular beats - he didn't seem to think there was anything wrong - blood pressure etc. was fine. He told me that perhaps they should do an echo cardiogram just to make sure the heart structure is good. Each time I go to the cardiologist they do an EKG and they say it looks fine. I just wish they would help with the terrible irregular beats. Check out the gastro-cardiac syndrome. Good luck to you.
I had similar events a few years back. It was mild for years then got worse. I was put on sotalol, Amlodipine & the rest. They seemed to help the symptoms for a while, but the side effects from the medications were honestly worse & a few months later I could hardly walk without chest pains. My Doctor advised me staying on them & upping the dosages. I was even down for an ablation. Short answer, you need to look at what you eat & what is missing. It's all about the firing order in the heart & what makes those electro chemical impulses. Eg Magnesium, Potassium, sodium etc. I no longer take any of these drugs, not had a skipped beat or anything else in years, I'm at the gym 4 times a week. 57yrs & still rocking. Look into it and try to avoid these chemicals if possible.
i hope you all the very best, thanks so much again
thank you very much for taking the time to write this, im glad things are going well for you. its interesting, do you know what was your resting heart rate prior to the beta blocker and how low it got after it? the doctor is considering giving me a beta blocker.
its very weird actually because sometimes my resting heart rate hovers around 55-65 at night or at deeep rest and was wondering if one would take beta blockers might they cause haemodynamic instability.
i completely feel you, and totally understand what you are saying. i personally noticed that if i have too much sugar like fizzy drinks they encourage high heart rate around 90-110 as i feel like my heart has enhanced sensitvity to adrenaline etc so i cut out major sources of sugar like those fizzy drinks. i also noticed that some spices and some pizza sauces they use has caused episodes of very rapid heart rate as well (dont think it was an SVT i.e. around 120bpm)
so i stopped eating pizza because of that.
I hope your investigations go all well and that you get through them. You could ask your doctor about urine collection for serotonin levels to rule out any endocrinological cause.
i think a holter monitor and standard blood test and most importantly an echo are all needed to give reassurance that you will be fine andthat your body is doing okay.
there is a youtuber called york cardiologist i highly recommend you give him a watch as he can be a great source of reassurance
i heard that trying out magnesium citrate suppliment can beneficial (could link you to the video if you are interested) to reduce ectopics.
all the best
keep rocking man i hope you live a long and happy life. i completely get you and thanks for the advice ill continue to search for my triggers. thanks again bud