Ventricular arrhythmia

[David1964]

Well, after 20 years of atrial arrhythmias, I find that it has now been joined by ventricular arrhythmia. These have worsened in the last few days, and I have been in hospital twice to have them checked out. I am getting frequent v. ectopics, up to trigeminy, and they appear to be related to exercise - even modest exercise, such as walking to the back fence. I've started on a low dose of beta-blockers, but to no avail so far. Am now madly thinking about what my options might be - more pills, another ablation or even a pacemaker. Going back to the cardio on Thursday - so I will see what he has to say. Google has nothing good to say about VEs, or the prognosis.

I realise that this is an atrial-focussed group, so I don't expect that folks here know too much about it. Perhaps there is an allied site for folks with ventricular issues. I tried searching through Google, but without success.

Feeling shattered here. Any comments welcome.

[cyrilbarnes]

Hi David, my original problem was ventricular, my AF came later. I have Brugada syndrome which can put you into VF for no apparent reason. Don't need to be stressed or exercising in fact it most commonly occurs in bed during sleep. It brings on cardiac arrest and is a common cause of sudden adult death but can also take younger people including children and babies. No drugs at present to 'cure' it, so only answer is to have a defibrillator implanted, which is true for a lot of ventricular tachycardia problems so you may end up with one, although ablation is also offered for some ventricular arrhythmias. Your cardio will obviously give you all the answers you need when you get to see him/her. I belong to a couple of forums for ICD recipients and a number of members have had them fitted due to ventricular tachycardia problems.

[David1964 in reply to cyrilbarnes]

Thank you so much for your reply Cyril. I have been thinking about ICDs today. I will ask the cardio about them tomorrow. I hope you are well at present, and that your device is working well for you. You are so kind to reply.

[Hidden]

Personally, I think AF is the new word for arrhythmia, possibly because arrhythmia is so hard to spell. I haven't got AF either, but I did have.

[David1964 in reply to Hidden]

Thanks Koll.