What do you think caused this?

[lgrass94]

I’ll try to keep it short and simple

I developed an eating disorder a few years ago, and I essentially started starving myself! I lost a fair bit of weight very quickly (24kgs/3.5 stone over 3 months or so)

I suddenly started having tons of PVCs and PACs, they actually started gradually with singles a few times a day then within 1 week I started having couplets triplets and runs of them! They scared the hell out of me!!

Every single time I went to have my bloods drawn at the hospital (because of malnutrition fears) the ONLY thing coming back below normal was FOLATE and vitamin B12. When I say low, I mean borderline low nothing super fancy!

My question is .. when I commenced a normal healthy diet again, they literally diminished!! They went away within 4/5 days!!

Would vitamin b12/folate really cause that many significant arrhythmias?

[Mugsy15]

Everyone is different, but in your case the answer to your question is clearly yes!

[lgrass94 in reply to Mugsy15]

I mean it has to be right? It’s the only two things that were coming back slightly below par. When I say I cut out all food, I mean all food except 3 safety foods! Potato, chicken and cucumber. That was my diet once a day for almost 6 months. I didn’t touch anything with calcium (well enough calcium to contribute to a healthy diet) for months!! I think potato has potassium in it so that helped. But like, how weird! Why wasn’t my electrolytes low?

[Ppiman]

I should think it's likely to be more complex than a single item given the medical context but I think B12 is implicated in many aspects of health. A reduction in weight will alter the shape of the heart and that is known to be able to create the conditions for ectopic beats to occur. I have read that the heart cells react to being stretched, for example, so a sudden loss of weight could also cause physical effects, perhaps?

Steve

[lgrass94 in reply to Ppiman]

Hey bud, thank you for commenting! I have read of one study where a lady who morbidly obese had a gastric band/sleeve and reduced ALOT of total weight over the course of the surgery and she went into funny rhythms too. But I would almost expect that seens as it’s a sudden change. I think the weird part for me is that we (me and the on duty drs at hospital) were expecting my bloods to come back abnormal for sure on electrolytes! Like, they even had the cardiac inpatient team come round one evening to see what was going on and how complex they could be. I think they ended up name it AIVR slow tachycardia, but I was having underlying sinus arrhythmia that mean the PVCs were falling all different timings.

Thanks

[Mugsy15 in reply to lgrass94]

Your condition is outside my limited knowledge, and as I'd never heard of Accelerated Idioventrical Rhythm, and was fascinated by the oxymoron 'slow tachycardia', I've scurried off to Wikipedia to learn about it!

So thank you for that!

[lgrass94 in reply to Ppiman]

Also one other thing that kept coming up was if I had a hiatus hernia or some sort of diaphragm problem that somehow was irritating the heart now that I had shrunk. They were baffled by it! The final cardiologist I spoke to said he presumed it was late stage starvation that perhaps wasn’t presenting fully in my bloodwork.

[Ppiman in reply to lgrass94]

Well - that was fun for you, I bet. Goodness me. Still, hopefully you are now "sorted". I think a lot of people (indeed maybe doctors, too) fail to realise that the heart can become pushed against by other organs and that alone can set of PAC ectopic beats which can then trigger AF. I am pretty sure this "physical" explanation is far more common than people realise. Even now, bending down or stretching high can cause me to have ectopic beats and palpitations.

Steve

[FraserB]

The heart is sensitive to changes in the body, including both weight gain and also weight loss. Either can affect the heart's electrical activity. There are fat pads around the heart, and while reducing these fat pads can be beneficial, it may have temporarily altered the heart's electrical activity and then settled down again. Additionally, while B12 and folate deficiencies alone may not be the primary cause of arrhythmias, they can certainly contribute to their development. It could also be other reasons but it sounds like you are now without the PVC and PACs plus eating a healthier diet which has made all the difference for your heart and that's what matters moving forward.

[lgrass94 in reply to FraserB]

Thanks for the comment. Yes eating a normal diet again now. Took me long enough. I do find it strange how they disappeared so promptly after commencing food intake again! 95% of them went away within 5-7 days after. But the fact the electrolytes were mostly always above baseline they didn’t suspect it could be that.