Can anyone give me some info please?

[Cha275rL]

I have been waiting for a heart monitor since February, and when I enquired about it, apparently the GP had forgotten to ask about it. I now have an appointment to get one on 22nd August. I was feeling that I was going to faint, so she cut my atenolol from 50mg to 25 mg, which has helped, but heart still too slow apparently, at 50 bpm. I decided to have a private consultation, because I was getting nowhere, and have just received a letter from them, saying that that ECG they gave me showed sinus rhythm at 50bpm, with intermittent bradycardia with a couple of junctional beats. No idea what that is. He is going to interpret the monitor for me, and says he’ll be looking for significant episodes of bradycardia/ high degree AV block. Is this something to worry about? Sorry for long post,

[Palpman]

A Junctional Beat normally arises in the AV Node when no normal Sinus Node beat is forthcoming.

It is quite common and some people only have this AV Junctional beat and it has no serious symptoms.

Due to it arising in the AV Node there will be no observable P wave.

My wife has this permanently and she never even knew it.

[Cha275rL in reply to Palpman]

Thanks for that Palpman, it was like reading a foreign language. That’s a relief.

[Buffafly]

Bradycardia is slow heartbeat, if too slow can cause faintness. It can be caused by AV block ie the ventricles and atria not talking to each other.

[Cha275rL]

Thanks for clearing that up Buffafly, v helpful.

[secondtry]

Regrettably you now have to push medics hard (that incl private consultations) as you have discovered with your GP's oversight to check up on them and to get the information you as an individual need. So well done on going private and be persistent.

[Cha275rL]

Yes it seems you do have to push hard, which I’m not very good at. Thanks secondtry.