What calms down PVC's? And how do they differ from PAC's?

I have a sister, Marcia and now a friend who are both wrestling now with lots of disturbing PVC's. My sister is wearing a 21 day holter monitor, and my friend Mindy has already done that and was told that "healthy hearts sometimes just do that"...yet she is being bothered by these scary episodes of heart thumping and so forth. My sister says she has trouble falling asleep some nights as she is getting so many palpitations. I"m wondering how common it is for these to become AFib? I had lots of PACS,. which then were diagnosed as Afib.

I know we have a PAC tamer, but does that also calm down PVC's? And what really is the difference between the two?

Any suggestions would be helpful...I know about electrolytes, and have passed that on...others?

Thank you ~ Barb

Barb - Electrolytes and the ions they form involve electrical conductivity. When there is insufficient supply, the effects will show up as skipped or missed beats which for some can eventually turn into Afib. As mentioned in the Cardiac Fibrosis discussions, the excess tissue (fibrosos) causes a physical interference between the cells therefore causes electrical conductivity interference as well.

Magnesium deficiency is a known cause of cardiac fibrosis. Many people have found that skipped beats at night can be controlled by a focus on the solid base of magnesium intake which brings about intracellular repletion (with time) along with the monitoring of daily intake of potassium containing foods versus an overload of sodium-containing foods. It all works together as discussed in CR 72 on the sodium/potassium ion pump function.

Many women take supplemental calcium which interferes with magnesium function. Calcium is excitatory and could be promoting her activity if she is taking calcium. Just have her stop calcium and focus on magnesium, potassium and the proper ratio of sodium to potassium. Often, people are high sodium and low potassium. She can coast a while without taking supplemental calcium if that's the case.

Have her start with a dietary assessment of electrolyte intake from foods... use one of the online charts such as from Oregon State and see what her daily intake actually. Here's the one on potassium: [lpi.oregonstate.edu]

Jackie

PS - Barb - I forgot to mention... have her make a batch WW (magnesium bicarbonate water) and start adding that to her purified drinking water since it's a great way to include a highly beneficial form of magnesium.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2014 11:00AM by Jackie.

Thanks Jackie- I did pass some of that info along but will be more specific when I get back to them.
Can you also clarify the difference between PVC's and PAC's? I believe I mostly had PAC's before being diagnosed with Afib. But my sister and my friend seem to be having alot of PVC's. Not sure how they differ or if it matters.

Barb

Barb,

PAC's are premature beats in the atria, PVC's are premature ventricular beats. With a PAC, the atria fire early and then send the signal to fire the ventricles, which also fire early.

You can look at premature beats as a "backup" system in case the primary system fails to operate. Any of the heart cells have the ability to fire on their own, which then cascades to all the rest. There is sort of a timer that operates, and during that time, cells should not fire on their own. Past the length of the timer, a cell can fire, firing all the others. This allows for a beat even if the primary system is not working. The key is that the time set on the timer can vary. In our afib/ectopic world, we'd like this timer to be long so we don't get a lot of premature beats. A way to do this is with electrolytes like Jackie says.

The "reset time" is called the "effective refractory period," so atrial effective refractory period or ventricular effective refractory period.

George
This search will give you lots more to read from this site on effective refractory period <[tinyurl.com] Former prolific poster and MD named PC or Pat Chambers wrote about this a lot.

George



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2014 12:04PM by GeorgeN.

Thanks George - I will look at that link from Patrick. I was always under the impression that atrial things were of less concern than things happening in the ventricles...pardon my very basic description....but is that true?

Barb

Barb,

From an afib perspective, that is true. In some instances, PVC's can be concerning, but generally not.

George

OK thanks again

My Alivecor shows eat eather a skipped beat or pvc every 4 or 5 beats. I can't help but think that irregular beat causes me to go into afib. But the
the EP says not to worry about them.

Hi Trent,

The ectopics that often coexist with AFIB/Flutter can indeed be a precipitating factor in a give episode, but more as a precusor skip and a hop of the heart on its way to a full blown episode. What the Docs mean by 'dont worry about it for the most part' is that ectopics alone generally will not lead to a thrombotic event nor cardiomyopathy which is the main big concerns Docs have with AFIB.

Symptomatically, though, they can be a real nuisance and in the case of PVCs when they get too frequent and too persistent can signal a real problem and in some instances can be confused with VT and vice versa and thus at that point are often worth checking out with an EP and sometimes having to ablate those pathways.

But most often a lot of ectopics also can signal an electrolyte imbalance and hence all the wise advice here about insuring your repletion of magnesium and potassium is sufficient to help quiet down those annoying skipped beats.

Shannon

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Hi Shannon, Do EP's ablate for PVC,s and if they do can this be done during an ablation for AFib. Thanks Trent