Posted by Ken Willis on November 13, 2002 at 01:18:25:
In Reply to: Re: Maze and Mitral Valve Repair posted by Roger Meyer on November 12, 2002 at 21:18:22:
I don't know if I'm typical and I can only speak for myself, having experienced several different heart rhythms: PACs, afibs, aflutter, possibly atrial tachycardia and, of course, NSR. I have an atrial pacemaker, which has been turned off for several months but has heart-rhythm recording capability. After getting the doctor's interpretation of the tracings, I've been able to correlate what I was feeling during arrhythmia episodes with identified arrhythmia types. I'm hoping to get a date for removal of the pacemaker at tomorrow's appointment with the cardiologist.
I'd be happy for someone with more medical training to correct me, but I will try to describe what I've felt when I've had arrhythmias that have been recorded on my pacemaker. I'm very gratified to say that I have to rely on middle-term memory for this because the last arrhythmia I had was almost three months ago, and being a several-episodes-a-week guy, that makes me feel that for me arrhythmia is a thing of the past thanks to maze surgery.
Anyway, PACs feel like a regular heartbeat interrupted by skipped beats. I'm told that in actuality the skips are double beats, but I'm assuming that since the ventricles aren't able to fill completely with the quick beats, you don't feel them. In any event, if you feel your pulse while having PACs and keep your metronome going through the skips, you'll find that your pulse is regular except for the skips. You can get bunches of them or isolated PACs. I would frequently feel a flutter up my neck during PACs.
I think that most of us on this site are familiar with what afibs feel like, although some of you apparently really don't feel them. Well, I could really feel them, from the first departure from NSR to restoration of NSR. The first sensation was often like a PAC or skipped beat, and then my heart would turn chaotic, pounding dissonately in my chest. If I was lying in bed, it would sometimes feel as if my heart was bouncing the bed. My exercise tolerance was drastically reduced. I've exercised for years to stay in shape for my favorite outdoor activities, and even during hard exercise, I would feel strong and able to sustain the load. During afibs, I would feel weak, both from a physical and psychological standpoint, which I found very distressing. I could exercise my way out of afibs if I was taking an anti-arrythmia med, so I have lots of experience with that weak feeling. Afibs are very chaotic (irregularly irregular). Usually as the hours in afib passed, the pounding feeling would diminish, sometimes greatly.
Atrial flutter feels a lot like mild afib. It's not so chaotic and the heart doesn't pound, at least not as much, but you can definitely feel your heartbeat is irregular. During either afib or aflutter my left chest would feel as if it had a mild cramp, and when my heart would go into NSR, it would be as if that cramp relaxed. It would feel sooo good. Anyway, I couldn't always be sure whether I was in flutter or fib, but when I exercised, it usually became clear, because I had far better exercise tolerance during flutter. I think that taking an arrhythmia medication can make it harder to distinguish fib from flutter because it will slow tachycardia and make ventricular contractions somewhat more synchronized than they would be without the medicine.
I don't think I've ever had PVCs so can offer no subjective description for you.
I don't know if that's what you wanted, Roger, but if it's not, maybe it will enlighten another reader.
- Re: Maze and Mitral Valve Repair Roger Meyer 08:52:23 11/14/2002 (0)