PVC’s during AF?

[Mejulie69]

Hello, slightly technical question on behalf of my 68 year old father. He has never been diagnosed with AF, but he has just had an ECG showing a irregularly irregular heartbeat with a significant amount of PVC interspersed within the irregular normal beats. The GP said he wasn’t sure if he was in AF due to the number of ectopics! (I have seen the ECG and it is completely bizarre!)

When I was in AF, I never had any PVC’s, so I understand where the GP is coming from in this instance.

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

[Hidden]

When I was on a ward for two weeks with my first AF attack I definitely had pvc's sometimes in pairs or more. I think the nurses were worried when I had 8 in a row, there were 4 nurses by my bed in seconds. They thought I was VF

[BobD Volunteer]

One big problem here is that GPs are not fully trained in reading ECGs. Many doctors get it quite wrong I learned. There was a training video around a while back where a room full of doctors were all shown a series of ECGs and asked to diagnose from them. Many, including a number of cardiologists got most of them wrong.

You really need to show a copy to your EP . Always ask for copies of any test results by the way. Strangely I never have to ask!

I remember last year a cardiologist at my local hospital talking about my AF when I could clearly see that it was atrial tachycardia! When I picked him up on it he claimed to be using AF as a blanket description. Duh!!!

[Hidden]

I doubt if anyone on the forum is qualified to add to what your GP has said. Even GP's often struggle to accurately "read" an ECG, so the only thing I can suggest it to arrange for an EP or cardiologist to see the ECG as soon as possible. Also, as a matter of urgency, your father should be assessed for anticoagulation for reasons I know you will understand.....good luck

[Finvola]

Before I started taking Flecainide I had PVC’s and runs of AF which were caught on a Holter monitor. Flec stopped the AF but I’ve had bouts of PVC’s every second, third, fifth and random beats occasionally since and the ECG does look weird.

Can you ask your GP to either refer your dad or get (ideally) an EP to look at the ECG and give a clear diagnosis?

PS

Perhaps a clear diagnosis is sometimes elusive as others have said. I was recently plagued with weeks of ectopics and tachycardia (as I thought) and caught them on my Kardia. Kardia analysis service said atrial ectopics and tachycardia but a local cardiologist said no - it’s AF. A different cardiologist said it was ectopics and junctional tachycardia. I just took my pick of the best of the bunch!!