Can drinking lots of water ease ventricular ectopic beats?

As a sufferer of PVC's for 45 years I have done the rounds of cardiologists and not one of them seems to have a clue what is going on. All they can do is try to address the effects with drugs, rather than eliminate the cause. And often the drugs come with their own serious side effects. Ablation works for some but not all. I have long been aware that what goes into my stomach, or what doesn't, has a direct relationship to my symptoms - I have had up to 23 000 ectopic beats in a single day. But the cardiologists tell me that stimulation of the vagus nerve will only slow my heart rate. I know that when my stomach is empty my symptoms get much worse, and that when I have a decent meal they ease off. But I have found recently that simulating a full stomach by drinking lots of water does have a dramatic effect on reducing the number of ectopics I get.

In the last few months the frequency and severity of my symptoms had been increasing severely. Then, a few weeks ago, when they started firing up, I started drinking lots of water. The magic number seems to be 18 mouthfuls, several times a day. Lo and behold I am starting to feel a lot better.

Could it be dehydration that is involved here?

Oh, and on occasion my old remedy of a dose of gaviscon helps a lot.

Cliff in Western Australia.

[Tabbyjune]

Not Sure if this is a helpful reply but being dehydrated can definitely cause palpitations, so drinking the water could have helped them

[MOasis]

I have experienced more erotic beats and AF attacks when dehydrated. In addition recently I have found my symptoms significantly reduced since I significantly reduced and as far as possible cut out wheat, grains, sugars and processed foods. Preservatives seem to be the worst for me.

[dani777]

Hi. All I can tell you is that I drink a lot of water every day, and it doesn't seem to make a difference with palps. I either have a bad day, or a good day. I have found, for sure, that heavy meals or big portions can set off palpitations. I've not found that an empty stomach can. I often don't eat much at all because of bowel disease as I get nausea or just have no appetite. But again I do drink lots of water. Not sure of any "magic number" but hey, whatever works for you, right?

[Shcldavies]

I am no Doctor but will offer a view I think is right based on trial and error gained from symptoms over the last 24 years. Your electrolytes are out of balance (you have too much something in your cells- like sodium or calcium) and water dilutes your electrolytes to make things a bit better. Drinking water very first thing in the morning is best and try leaving at least 12 hours between your last meal at night and first the next day (the longer the better up to 14 or even 16 hours but work up to this gradually). The right type of magnesium supplement will also help balance your electrolytes, getting the right magnesium for your condition is a bit of trial and error but do not try magnesium oxide as it will be ineffective and could cause many trips to the toilet. I would start with magnesium taurate. One other thing to be aware of is the acid in your stomach, you need acid in your stomach and if you take PPIs you will not have enough and it will deplete you electrolytes, try cutting down if you do take them to see how you get on - don't stop them as it may cause other problems.

[avma in reply to Shcldavies]

Hi,Are you doing Intermittent Fasting and does this help you?

Thx for your reply.

[Shcldavies in reply to avma]

I am not but I do believe it can help if done properly - but I also believe there can be problems until our bodies get used to it. For people with our heart problems, I personally I would not do it to extremes that some suggest from day 1. I would work towards it over a month so our bodies gradually get used to it and perhaps even then not go to lower limits of calorie intake. Make sure you keep hydrated throughout.

The reason I say this is that for some/many with our condition I believe that it is at least partly cause by a lack or too much of something in our bodies and such a diet will provide an unwanted shock to our system, however training our bodies to take nutrients as it should can only be a good thing and potentially provide a means to helping our condition.

I have started taking a liquid Vit D supplement (as advised by a recent poster on this site) and find it very useful. I tend to get ectopics (which in my opinion can start your condition off) when I eat too much sugar/alcohol, however a couple of days after starting this new supplement I have not had any - too soon to come to any conclusions but looking promising. The other thing is that whilst I have had this condition for 25 years I cannot remember getting it on a sunny day and before my ablation tended to get it from late October suggesting Vit D may have a part to play .

[avma in reply to Shcldavies]

Thx for your reply!Yes I guess we always have to do the things gradually when we start something to not to shock our system, like you I also think that etopics are the premonition of our heart starting to make a new path of arrhythmia again. When they come, you have to be alerted, but not too much because than you could get anxious and the circle is starting...

True that in sunny days and spring and summer one feels better and tend to have less problems with the heart.

Is it the vitamin D from the sunshine you think 🤔? It could be...

I’m taking also vit D, but more to keep COVID out. My GP gave me Immudefense: this is a combination of Vit D, zinc, vit C, selenium, quercetine, green tea extract. I take this every day, so perhaps it will work for me too.

I also take magnesium with a bit of taurine and I take my crataegus drops.

I hope to get the etopics out again, but that’s is always a mystery...

[Shcldavies in reply to avma]

I am assuming its the Vit D from the sunshine because that's the limit of my knowledge. The Vit D I now take is a mix of D3 and K2 - I think you need Vit D3, K2 and Magnesium as a combination but not sure why. I also take magnesium (a triple complex of Citrate, Taurate and Bisglycinate).

Ectopics can start when foci in your heart are too sensitive and fire off when they are not needed (foci are types of cells in your heart that are meant to fire off as backup when they sense something wrong with your normal rhythm). Once triggered they can become too sensitive for a while and may need the right electrolytes to calm down over time (its the electrolytes that provide the chemical reaction that fire the electrical systems of your heart). Too much sugar and alcohol (electrolyte imbalance) start mine off, thankfully they are not so bad following my ablation, they occasionally trigger palpitations when "other factors" are present but these normally last seconds (one lasted 2 minutes, but normally well under a minute). The other factors are over exertion (especially carrying weight up hills for long periods), rushing for prolonged periods, at rest when over eaten/bloated and applying pressure to your rib cage about 10cm down from your left armpit. Not had any ectopics in the week since started with D3 K2 suppliment but know its too early to get too exited.

Thankfully I have not had any of the bad symptoms of arrhythmia since my ablation 2 years ago (not counting the first 2 weeks of my blanking period). These ectopics and short runs of palpitations I get now are nothing like the arrhythmia symptoms I had.

[avma in reply to Shcldavies]

Since my hybrid ablation in May 2019, I hadn’t had almost no etopics anymore. It started in February 2020 one time I had a real run, was really surprised about this and really thought this was it for me. I can only think about that I had been sick for 3 weeks, really bad the month before...After that once in a while I had an etopic, so it started slowly up again and found that when I was stressed or emotional or something unexpected happened in my daily routine my heart got a short run, but at that time I didn’t think anything about that, told it also to my cardiologist at my control appointment in June, but did my bike test then and everything normal.

It was just now in December with my check up again on the bike the run happened of etopics, I must say I was stressed before and during the test we were talking and I think I was breathing wrong in an hyperventilating way, if you know what I mean.

So I had these 25 beats that were fast and irregular. But I cannot say how long this is in duration of time. I think my heart rate went up to 175 but is this then 8 seconds or so?

When you say that you have etopics under a minute and you don’t make anything out of it, did they come from the ventrical of your heart and how did they feel, regular or irregular?

[Shcldavies in reply to avma]

They were regular at 145 rpm and atrial and did not make me feel bad. What did the Doc say about yours? I still have MAT that could not be ablated and believe this is the cause, however MAT is normally irregular so not 100% sure. Whilst the `docs know best, they do nit know everything and this is especially true of our condition so self help can pay off.

[avma in reply to Shcldavies]

Ah ok, yes AT and regular is not as bad.EP thought mine come from ventrical and were irregular and also had a few couplets, so I have had a holter for a week and this was normal, no ventricular etopics only a few etopics from the atria.

So he proposed an mri from the heart and will also perform an EP exam on the end of February to look further into it, what the origin is of my run I had. So it still can be possible that the origin is situated in the atria even if the etopics are seen in the ventrical. That I found weird, I didn’t know that you can have an ECG where they see a run in the ventrical but that the origin could lie in the atria.

So I hope it isn’t as bad as it shows on first site.

I also really don’t feel like it is as bad because I hadn’t had anything like it anymore and also my holter came out normal, but ofcourse I will have to wait what they will find.

I know that my EP found it a very strange run and showed it to his colleagues who also couldn’t figure it out...

Really gives me stress and anxiety ofcourse because I don’t like to be in the dark about this.

[Shcldavies in reply to avma]

That looks promising, especially if it’s not a regular thing. Your EP exam is likely to get to the bottom of it and may well get it fixed by ablation there and then, it the unknowing that is hard to cope with but thankfully you don’t have long to wait. Keep us informed of the outcome.

[philologus]

Hello Cliffo,

I agree that water plays a very significant part in all our health issues - including our heart.

Over the last couple of years I've become interested in this for reasons similar to yours and have started making my own "structured water". This has greatly improved not only my health - but the health of all my family too.

Rather than go into a long explanation of how I got to this stage, here's a 90min video to watch when you have time to just sit and take it all in. I can promise that you will find a few surprises - such as the fact that our hearts don't produce enough pressure to pump our blood round - so each cell has its own energy source that helps it to travel round.

Professor Pollack has been working on this for a few years now and is currently conducting experiments to see how the fact that water has "memory" can be used to our benefit.

I hope this helps.

George

youtube.com/watch?reload=9&...