Bigeminy

[Tulsa918]

Hello,

I am new to this boards but so fed up, starting to feel like I'm a basket case.

I have mitral valve prolapse. About 5 years ago I started getting worse and worse palpatations. I've always had them on and off my whole life but really started to get noticeable here the last few years.

I have had numerous ekgs, a couple of remote montors I've worn for 2weeks to a month, a stress test and echo.

I've found that I have ventricular bigeminy, which is absolute torture. Especially since I'm already an anxious person, they make me feel short of breath, lightheaded and sometimes I can't get them to stop. If I'm lucky, if I purposely cough I can get my heart to go back into sinus rhythm. I've developed a bad habit of tensing up and holding my breath. I catch myself doing it every day for no reason, and it tends to bring on the bigeminy even more.

I've had an hour a few times of afib and my heart resets itself, and i feel exhausted afterwards.

My worst fear is it going into vtach or vfib. I begged my cardiologist pretty much to send me to the electrophysiologist but they told me my burden of pvc's isnt enough. I was at 6% my last remote monitor that I wore up from 3% the year prior. It feels a lot more than that but I guess those things are pretty accurate, what i'm told.

I want to go over the road with my boyfriend and become a CDL driver. I have constant anxiety because of these things and I just want one doctor to listen to me. It's changed me, emotionally and I just want my life back. They all say you're fine. I get that, they are most likely not going to turn into worse, which I am thankful for, but what about my quality of life. I'm just supposed to live with this. I'm on metoprolol which helps them but does not completely control them.

Thank you for allowing me to rant, I just don't know what to do

[Benno2k24]

Hi Tulsa918. I just searched on this site and came across your post. Your situation sounds pretty much like mine. I had noticed more and more runs of ectopics over the last number of months and, on visiting the cardiologist he did capture a short run of them, writing up the fact in his report and highlighting they are not concerning. Lo and behold, two days ago they ramped up massively to the point where I am pretty much dealing with them constantly throughout the day and night and just want them to stop. It’s almost as if things have flipped from mainly normal beats with etopics in between, to now mainly ectopics with normal beats in between. They are especially bad whenever I get up and move about. Even as I type they are going off the whole time.

I have been looking through this site and do take a bit of comfort (if you can call it that) in the fact that others are having to deal with the same thing and that most of the reassurance from their medical experts is that, although not nice, they aren’t concerning. Anxiety plays a massive part in how the body reacts and clearly trying to deal with these doesn’t help our mental states.

I’m going to try to work through these but obviously, if they don’t subside I will need to connect back in with my cardiologist.

All I’d say is search Bigeminy on the site and have a read to try and help with reassurance - it does help me.

Feel free to reach out if needs be - always here to liaise with and help fellow sufferers.

[listerines]

Hello Tulsa918 - sorry to hear about the ongoing ventricular bigeminy, sure that it is not the most pleasant thing to be experiencing.Wondering have you spoke to an elctrophysiologist yet about these ongoing ectopics? In many instances a low burden of ectopics is deemed to be of no concern (though personally i am a little skeptical here once you delve into the research on ectopics of the past few decades), but concern does ramp up if you are deemed to have a high burden of pvcs/ pacs. Possible medications and ablation options should be discussed with an EP. Keep safe

[Doggiemomma]

I feel for you! Bigeminy doesn’t seem to have a lot written about it on this site (that I’ve researched anyway), but it sure is stressful & makes me so uncomfortable!