Hello all you good people,In July last year I had an ablation for PAF, all had been perfect until about 6 weeks ago, when I started with a profusion of ectopics, which at times made me feel wretched.
As a mater of course I've recently had a 7 day monitor which has shown I had 14% ectopics.
They thankfully have calmed down, I have a follow up appointment at St Thomas's in May.
I had some anxiety over that period so believe that is why I had the ectopics so bad.
My question after all that rambling is what does the 14% equate too?
Best wishes
Diane
Written by
DianeEM
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You would have to ask the medics that question. My simple mind would say one of 2 things - either you have more activity 14% of the time or out of 100 beats - 14 would be ectopics.
Have your read the previous post on ectopics? It is a common experience and many people will not be aware of their ectopics - we all have them - but some, especially AF’ers, seem especially sensitive to feeling them.
Thank you for your reply CDreamer. Yes, I digest all info on ectopics, as have suffered them for years, Usually deep breathing calms them, but this time nothing worked.
What I omitted was early November at follow up from ablation all was very good and positive, I was taken off flecainide and bisoprolol, which I was very grateful for.
It means if your heart rate is 60 bpm then you're averaging around eight and half ectopic beats every minute, or over 12, 000 in a 24 hour period.
That's a lot of ectopic and thankfully they have calmed down and hopefully will not require any further treatment.
In the past, I've had similar amounts for brief periods of time, and then they went away. Lately ectopic beats tend to precede an aflutter or afib episode, so I sometimes take medications on an as needed basis till things calm doen.
Ectopics can be caused by many things, and anxiety is one of them.
I put a post on here yesterday as my ectopic burden has increased dramatically over the last week; sometimes up to 10000 a day ie 10%. I had some great advice from folks on here about trying to reduce the burden or at least reduce the anxiety associated with it.
Like you I feel all the ectopic beats which are unpleasant and raises the anxiety levels which in turn causes more ectopics.
Yesterday after the advice given, I put the Kardia away and resisted using it. I did check my pulse now and then but nothing like normal. I spent time doing deep breathing and also used a Headspace meditation session. Also, after eating rather than leaping up to do the dishes I just took it easy for half an hour. Eating smaller portions also helped.
I found that for the remainder of the day and evening I felt very few ectopics; less than 50 which is good for me recently.
They did wake me again around 3.30 this morning and lasted a couple of hours but have to say first impressions have been good. Long may it continue.
If you look at my post yesterday, have a read of the responses from people, you may get some reassurance.
Thank you very much for replying, thankfully currently they have calmed right down. When they do appear I do Bob's deep breathing tip and they disappear. You are so right about them raising anxiety levels, I have to learn to be calmer.
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