Posted by Glenn Camp on April 02, 2004 at 15:57:31:
In Reply to: Re: PVC's posted by John Gross on April 02, 2004 at 11:31:54:
Hi John,
My EP in Tyler, Texas, put me on 100 mg of flecainide twice a day the middle of January when he switched me from sotalol. Then on February 20th he started me taking 25 mg of atenolol once a day to help control pvc's and tachycardia. It helped to an extent but not comepletely.
March the 9th, I had pva performed in Houston and I haven't had afib since but pvc's have eaten my lunch since then. Let me say right here that I have been plagued with pvc's for years. Some occurred alone without afib and some occurred with afib attacks. Afib alone would be bad enough, but when afib and pvc's both attacked me, it was "Katy bar the door" time. That's the attacks that would start the urgent frequent urination and "take me down" to where I couldn't walk, hardly sit up.
Nine days after my procedure I had a 'breakthrough' of pvc's where there were 45-50 or so per minute that continued for approximately an hour or so. My wife took me to the ER here in Kilgore, 200 miles north of Houston, at the Doctor in Houston's request for an ekg to try and identify the pvc's as correlating to my symptoms. This experience of pvc's were terrible.
I was admitted to the hospital in Tyler by my cardiologist and kept there for two days because I was so symptomatic and also he doubled my dose of atenolol from 25 mg once a day to twice a day. After one day of this dosage I felt very fatiqued. Dr. told me that was one of the side effects.I am still bothered with bad feeling pvc's several times during the day and sometimes at night they wake me up. When I say bad feeling pvc's, I mean the kind that are very strong that leave you lightheaded feeling and a feeling of anxiety. When these happen frequently and not enough time to recover from the previous one before the next one occurs, they take me down and I just have to lay around hoping they will decrease or cease happening so often or stop altogether. Cardiologist told me to take more atenolol at these times but I am not doing that so far.
When I try 'cutting back' on dosage and taking only half of pill and/or going longer than twelve hours between dosages, the frequency and forcefulness of pvc's increase. I'm in a catch 22, or danged if you do or danged if you don't sort of thing.
I was doing fairly well prior to nine days post procedure, but have not been able to enjoy being free of afib because of the onslaught of pvc's since then. Too many days spent 'laying around' and not enough days being 'up and about' to suit me. Laying around makes me sick even if I'm well and I am not the laying around kind. Right now it's almost impossible to do much but just that.
Dr. Cheng in Houston believes the pvc's will subside as my heart heals. We truly are hoping so.I heard from one lady that she had more pvc's after her pva than before and they were tough, but then twenty two days post procedure they left.
Today is twenty four days post procedure for me.
I am in the tenth day of wearing a thirty day event monitor for determining if the pvc's I am having correlate to the syptoms I am having before committing to another procedure of ablation to eliminate them. I definitely believe they do.
John I wish I didn't have to take any medications. I definitely believe the ones I am taking are pulling me down as I do not feel like getting out and walking as I did the first few days following pva. And I need to walk and keep the old pump strong.
Back to the event monitor to let you all know how archaic some Dr's do things......
I have recorded and sent several episodes of pvc's over the telephone to Raytel, the company that I call to report episodes, during the past ten days. Raytel then has to send 'tracings' of these episodes to my cardiologist over in Tyler, Texas, thirty miles to the west of me. Then the cardiologist has to look at them and 'sign off' on them before they can be faxed to Dr. Cheng in Houston who will make the final determination about them.
Dr. Cheng notified me yesterday that he had not received any copies of the tracings as of yesterday.
I called my cardiologist's office in Tyler and 'they' told me he had not signed off on any of them and that was the hold up. I couldn't contact him directly because he is on night call this week.
I am going to have to go to his office in Tyler and have a talk with him and it's something I do not want to have to do. I may have to hunt him down in the hospital next door but I will do it if needful and right now it's needful.Regards,
Glenn Camp