On Sunday my boyfriend was sent to the hospital because he had complained that his was feeling lightheaded and his heart had been skipping beats for about 3 hours. It had started before he went to work. Anyways, the hospital ran a whole bunch of tests and had him hooked up to lots of things and came to the conclusion that he was really low on potassium and that he has something called PVC. That's apparently a heart condition where your heart misfires or something of that nature which causes it to skip beats.
His father has a mild case of it and his step mom had a severe case of it. Before he left the hospital he was hooked up to a heart monitor for him to wear for 24 hours. He mailed it in today and we have to just wait for the results. His heart is still skipping beats regularly. It will beat 6 or 7 times, then skip, then beat, then skip, then go 6 or 7 times again. He says he feels weak, and tired, and that the skipping gives him an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.
I can't help but be worried. I don't even really know all that much about PVC because I hadn't heard about it until now. I just don't understand how your heart can be perfectly fine and then just start regularly skipping and not stop after a short period of time.
Once the test results come in he will have to make an appointment with a cardiologist, and hopefully we will learn more then.
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I get them sometimes and they can be annoying. There's something called "cough CPR". If someone feels PVCs, they can cough, sometimes it has to be a vigorous cough. The cough increases thoracic pressure and can get the heart back to a normal rhythm. Ask him to cough and see if works.
Hey Sarah, I'm Kris. My first question is how old is your boyfriend?
PVC are premature ventricular contractions or complexes. When blood is pumped into the heart the atria (top 2 chambers) contract and push the blood through the heart valves into the ventricles(the bottom 2 chamber). When the ventricles contract.,the blood is sent to the Aorta and the lungs. Sometimes, the ventricle contract prematurely, before the atria have had time to contract and push the blood into the ventricles. The ventricles contract, but the chambers don't have blood in them. The sensation is "weird" and feels like a skipped beat, even though it really didn't skip. The chambers momentarily got the "line of order" confused. If any of us had an EKG, most likely a PVC would be seen. They're very common, but most people don't feel them. Some people do feel them. There's really no difference in severity from the people who do feel them and the ones who don't. Your boyfriend had enough PVCs that he became symptomatic because the blood wasn't shunted to the lungs providing him with the proper oxygen. PVCs themselves are harmless, it's just it may be a sign of something more serious, like coronary disease. Continue...
I had to seperate my posts because there is a 2000 character limit per post. Sorry. Read from the bottom up.
Thanks for the info, it's much appreciated.
To answer your question of his age, he is 20 years old.
His step mom had him do the vigorous coughing thing but that didn't help it any. She also told him to take in a deep breath and hold it as long as possible then slowly let it out... again though, it didn't help much.
It's really comforting to know that it isn't terribly harmful to him. I just look forward to getting the results back from his heart monitor and seeing what a cardiologist has to say about his case.
Considering his age, I really wouldn't worry that it is something serious. His electrolytes being "off" could've caused them. His potassium was low which will effect the electrical flow in his heart. Caffeine and Nicotine can cause them as well.
I have been having them recently, too. They are called pre-ventricular contractions. The heart beats normally, then has extra beats in between the normal beats. It does make you lightheaded and your heart does feel strange. It sometimes makes you think your heart went into your mouth or throat because it seems to get larger and then it thumps down. What has helped me -- which I think I learned a long time ago -- is when it happens, cough. Cough hard. That usually straightens it out for me. Sometimes it's a temporary thing. When I've gone to the doctors for it, they aren't really that concerned. They'd probably be concerned if it happened to them. I've had it for quite a long time. One time I went to the ER because it just kept happening for hours and hours, probably most of the day, and I got tired of feeling weak, scared, et cetera. The ambulance came and hooked me up to the EKG. Nothing showed there. My heart was being a good heart. I get to the hospital, they hook me up to the monitor and it showed up there, but everytime they took an EKG, there was nothing on there of note. At least they had the monitor to know something was up. I don't remember what, if any, medicine they gave me. I know I took my Excedrin and it eased the headache and, I think, made my heart get back into normal rhythm. Excedrin has Acetaminaphen (Tylenol) and aspirin in it as well as caffeine. I hope he gets better. I know what it feels like to have this. You feel like you'll have it the rest of your life. But, I'm fine now. Let me know.
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