Raising Awareness of PVCs... again?

If you are unfamiliar of my original blog post, it's here, and it kind of explains what a PVC is.

This is more of an update post because I had gone to the ER back on 4/13 for frequent PVCs. This was a little bit different than last time. It started on Wednesday evening 4/12, in which I began having PVC "events". In the world of PVCs this is not abnormal, but I was fairly concerned. What would happen is when my heart began an event and I would put my fingers on my neck to track my pulse, it would go something like this:

Beat/pulse

Beat/pulse

Beat/_____

Repeat about 5 times. The heart would reset itself, but then 10-15 minutes later, another event would happen. This went on throughout the night which became concerning to me.

The PVCs I was having back when I wrote my original blog post were more disturbing because my heart would go: beat/____, beat/____, a few times in a row, which feels a lot more like a panic attack or a heart attack and was a horrible feeling. If this kind of PVC lasts more than a few seconds, it can become V-tac, or Ventricular Tachycardia which requires a call to 911. Luckily, V-tach/V-Fib are two shockable (with paddles) types of heart attacks.

Source: https://avive.life/blog/shockable-vs-non-shockable-heart-rhythms/ 

Side note: if you are familiar with medical dramas, you have probably seen doctors try to use paddles on a non-beating heart. Defibrillators are named exactly for what they do - when your heart is in a fibrillated state, they send a shock to correct the error in the rhythm. You can not do this when your heart is in PEA (pulseless Electrical Activity) and Asystole (aka, "flatline").

Anyway, so I had decided by morning to go to the urgent care to be evaluated because the events hadn't stopped. I figured they might be able to monitor my heart rhythm or send me home with a 24 holter monitor or something. I was first in at 8am but realized quickly that they could do nothing. They advised I go to the ER so they can properly monitor my heart.

I had no other worrying symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, or SOB, but I just wanted to make sure my heart was okay, so I went in. Luckily, it wasn't super busy and we only ended up waiting about 30 minutes. I even got a "room" with patients separated by a curtain. Certainly better than the hallway, I suppose.

They drew blood to make sure my electrolytes were ok (I was still unintentionally fasting at this point so that's cool), did an EKG which showed nothing because its only about a 6 second picture, and hooked me up to their heart monitoring machine.

The PVCs continued in the couple of hours I was there, and the funny thing is that when I was checking in I told them I was having what I "thought were PVCs" but not being an actual medical professional I didn't want to sound like a know-it-all, but when the doctor saw the monitor he was like, "You were right, you're having PVCs".

Anyway, they basically said that because my heart was still pumping blood effectively, there wasn't really anything to be concerned about or anything they were able to do while I was there. They just warned me about calling 911 if it turned into V-Fib or V-Tach, and they were going to hook me up to a fancy new wireless holter monitor called a Zio XT. I was apparently their guinea pig that day because this was the first time the ER was going to hookup a patient with it. It was all so new that the Epic system wasn't even fully integrated with it yet so it took them much longer to set me up and make sure it was working before releasing me.

Besides being a little itchy under the diode, it's fairly unobtrusive, and with no wires, a lot easier to manage. I wore it for 14 days and was even be able to shower with it on without a problem, which was pretty neat. I got my results back very quickly (The PVCs only lasted for a total of about 24 hours, so the rest of the 14 days was fairly normal), and turns out I was having PVCs and PACs, so that's cool /s.

I have no idea what happens now, I'm assuming nothing because it's not really something anyone can do. There's no point in putting me on a medication when my heart isn't constantly going nuts. I'll write and update if that changes.

Revisiting "Raising Awareness"

I've been doing this blog for a number of years now, through a tumultuous marriage and eventual divorce, and during a couple of my dating escapades. All through them I've done a couple of "Raising Awareness" posts. I wanted to go back and revisit them to give some people advice on how to cope.

My very first blog post ever was Raising Awareness of Dyspareunia. I was never officially diagnosed with it, yet it was definitely a thing I was dealing with at the time. My life has changed drastically since this blog post was written, and I'm happy to say that it's no longer an issue. It turns out that, despite my constant self-talk of "everything is okay", it was definitely not okay and nothing was going to convince my brain otherwise. Now that I've moved on from my not-so-great marriage and dating a couple of other guys, I can safely say that it was my horrible relationship that caused the dyspareunia. This just proved further that women are emotional beings; they need that connection, that love, that commitment (unless you're just horny as crap and find any guy you can find - which is definitely not me), and if you're having issues in your relationship, that can easily carry over into your sex life. It's quite a relief actually because, if you read the blog post, I was pretty depressed about ever being able to find someone to love me with an issue like that (if I ever needed to). It's good to know that it wasn't a permanent thing.

The next one I wrote was Raising Awareness of Gallstones. This is another happy ending. I finally broke down and had a consult with a general surgeon about getting my gallbladder removed, which was mentioned in an update I made to the original post. It cemented my belief that I shouldn't go through with it. I was never having constant, like weekly attacks. They weren't even monthly. They were easily managed with Vicodin. I brought up my concern of that fact that each person (who spoke about their gallbladder removal) had a different experience in the aftermath. Some were perfectly healthy. Some could never eat fatty food again. Some had to basically live their life in the bathroom after every meal. And, I self-diagnosed myself with IBS (which isn't really hard to do, to be honest. I'm surprised I never wrote a "raising awareness" post about IBS), and my biggest fear was that removing my gallbladder would exasperate my condition. The surgeon obviously couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't. He also told me that it was completely my choice. I chose to leave it in.
Anyway, this is all beside the point. Along with not having any gallbladder attacks, I haven't had an IBS attack in a very long time either, and I'm going to contribute this to my healthy diet. My diet is quite low in fat, which has been known to exasperate both conditions. I do believe that I essentially "cured" myself with a good diet, 100%.

The next post in the series was Raising Awareness of Blepharitis, which is basically the inflammation of the eyelids, and is annoying as f*ck to treat and often reoccurs anyway. I only ever had the issue when I was wearing my contacts because that's when it became very noticeable, and I could not treat the issue (with the antibiotic ointment) with my contacts in, so wearing my contacts at all became a chore. There is no cure for it, but a lot of people on forums and other more legit research articles say that doing one thing or another (like taking fish oil supplements) helps decrease attacks. I found that not to be the case, but let me share my "cure" with you. I have been doing these two things for a couple years now and it basically brought my attacks to zero:

I wash over my eyelids during every shower with a Clarisonic brush. The type of face wash I use doesn't seem to matter. I just think using it to wash my eyelids in this manner helps keep the pores from being blocked and the eyelids from getting inflamed.
The second thing I do is use my own mixture of coconut oil/olive oil/vitamin E oil/almond oil/essential oil blend as an after shower moisturizer for my skin and pay special attention to my eyelids. Coconut oil is probably 80% of the blend (so it stays solid at room temperature) and it has anti-microbial properties. I think that helps keep my eyelids clean as well. I've been able to wear my contacts issue-free for a long time. I'm quite confident that I won't have another flare-up. Also, this moisturizer is pretty bomb and I recommend anyone with dry skin to make their own. I also use it in my hair after I shower as well.*

*I wrote this a long time ago (this post has been sitting in my drafts folder forever) but I figured I can keep it for those that might be suffering; because as of August of last year I actually got the LASIK procedure and although I hadn't had a blepharitis attack in a long time, I won't even have to worry about them messing with my contacts ever again!
 
The last one I wrote about was Raising Awareness of PVCs. There's not really much to mention here besides the fact that I haven't been getting them anymore. It might have something to do with a better sodium to potassium balance. 


 [Hardly anyone gets enough potassium in their diet even when they're trying - a banana has 400mg, and you need around 4,000mg. Even supplements only give you 99mg because they will disrupt your, um, bowels if you have too much at one time. This is why people complain of getting sick when they're using Keto-based BHB salts that bind with potassium.
Also, off topic here but you know that stuff you drink when you're going to have surgery in order to clear your system? Magnesium citrate? Yeah, too much magnesium will do it too!]


Anyway, besides committing to a standalone potassium supplement and keeping my intake of salt pretty decent, I'm getting more potassium in my diet with avocados and such as well. So I'm hoping that contributes to a healthy heartbeat.



Well, I hope y'all learned something today. I'll keep writing more "raising awareness" blog posts if and when I get new shit going on as I get older. I'm sure it's bound to happen.

Raising Awareness of PVCs

No, I don't mean PVC pipes. I think most people are aware of PVC pipes. If they aren't, then they have bigger issues.

I mean Premature Ventricular Contractions. It sounds scary and dangerous, but they're not. However, when I kept getting them and didn't know what they were, I was freaking out pretty good. So, I want to let people know what they are and kind of what they feel like, so they can see if this is what they've been experiencing for themselves. 

WARNING: I am not a doctor despite watching House, MD a second time though and working in a doctor's office and have done classes in Anatomy/Physiology and Medical Terminology. I still got checked out by a doctor just to make sure what I had wasn't more serious and if you're really concerned then I suggest you do the same. Okay, moving on...

This is your heart. The ventricles are the two lower chambers, and end up being responsible for pumping the blood to your lungs for oxygenation and to the rest of your body. There are nodes (not pictured) that control your heartbeat via electrical impulses. The main one is the sinoatrial node, but the purkinje fibers control the contraction of your ventricles. When they are out of sync, a PVC occurs.

i just had a PVC the other day when I was laying down for bed, and I noticed something interesting. I put my fingers on my neck in order to feel my heartbeat, and every time the ventricles pumped too early (as in, they didn't allow the cavities to be filled with blood before going off), I did not get a heartbeat on my neck. It feels a lot like a skipped beat or an extra beat. You are hyper aware of your pounding heart, and it almost seems like it's bouncing around in your chest. For me, a PVC lasts maybe 30 seconds, but it seems like a very long time. I suppose they could become dangerous if they continued due to the simple fact that the heart isn't pumping blood very efficiently; eventually that would cause serious issues. 

However, I read that there is a way to stop them from continuing: 

Yawn.

That's right. Even if it's a fake yawn. I read that the act of yawning uses the same vegus nerves as the heart, or something like that (I can't seem to find the article now. I don't think doctors know officially how it works) and it kind of resets the heart rhythm. i don't know why it works, I just know that it does!

I've done so many of these "Raising Awareness" posts that I think I'm going to re-link them in case anyone is interested in reading all the other lame things wrong with me!

Dyspareunia
Gallstones
Blepharitis