Terrible PVC's after eating.

Posted , 14 users are following.

Hi everyone I'm a regular on here and up until recently I've been pretty stable on flecainide at a low dose. But lately I am getting terrible strong PVC's after I eat. At first it was almost exactly 2 hours after lunch so I started eating only half of my lunch and the rest later in the afternoon. That helped. No PVC's or very few. Weird thing is now they have moved to after my dinner. This is happening every flipping day. I take a digestive enzyme with dinner. But I swear to God there is a button in the stomach area or small intestine that gets pushed or something and bam off go the PVC's. Problem is that these can quite often go into full blown A Fib. sad. Anyone else have this strange phenomenon?

1 like, 30 replies

30 Replies

Prev
  • Posted

    Yes,yes,yes. Even before I knew anything about this forum or afib or its many arms of aggravating problems, I told my daughter I noticed all these pacs and pvcs after eating. Usually mine started after eating too much. I have narrowed it down to too much, too much sugar, and too late in the evening.

    I will add that I had my ep do another check of my potassium and magnesium. Both were at the very low end of what is normal. Potassium should be 3-5.5.and mag is 1.8 to 2.4. My levels are 3.5 and 1.9 and I am now on those supplements and all extra beats are gone.

    Always ask your cardiologist before taking any supplements and be sure u need them.

    Good luck.

    Carol

    • Posted

      Thanks Carol I've also eliminated different foods do to sensitivity causing problems. And this has helped too. But this eating thing is driving me nuts. I'm gonna ask my doctor to check potassium and magnesium levels when I see him for my physical.

  • Posted

    I had copied and now paste "vagal stimulation", but 3john506 beat me to it. Regarding another response that included low potassium, I've read flec can cause low potassium and I've personally experienced low sodium results.

  • Posted

    Hi, for me its no big meals any more . . sad but true. Get into the habit of snacks, if you are a meat eater, try a chicken breast and nothing else, and small portions of anyhing. I expec you have stopped coffee and tea and chocolate?  Good Luck . . . .
    • Posted

      Hi Jay thanks for your ideas and support. I've been doing small meals and yes it is helping and I stopped ALL alcohol and caffeine years ago although the odd decaf coffee sure is nice lol. I've also just started the FODMAP diet. And funny thing is I've already stopped eating many of the foods listed. So I'm on the right track. Hopefully this bout of it will settle soon.

  • Posted

    Are you sure, that those are PVC's and PAC's? PAC's are more typical on the onset of aFib. 

    One more question: What is your heart rate normally?

    • Posted

      Yup I've been told in the hospital that they are. Mostly PVC's though. Why? And my resting heart rate is 64 to 68/70 bpm. Why?

    • Posted

      Dear Saniishealthy,

      myself also have aFib, but I'm in a special situation. My company is developing a personal ECG and I'm testing it, If needed I can record my ECG for several hours per day. Concerning the PVC/PAC problém, I see in accordance with the literature, that I have PAC runs after meal. Of course I see also PVC's during the they, but they are unrelated to aFIB onset.

      What is important, if I start walk up and down it supress the PAC run and may prevent the fibrillation.

      Concerning the resting heart rate, we may consider, that there are two types of aFib: vagally mediated and sypatathetically mediated. The first is characterised by high vagal tone therefore with low resting hert rate and lower peek heart rate during the aFib (may remain below 100/min or lower). Since your aFib showed up after the meal, I got a guess, that you have vagally mediated aFib.

      Best regards:

      György

    • Posted

      Thanks for that info Gyorgy. Yes I agree with you it's just too bad the specialists don't want to deal with this type of A Fib. Medication and ablation surgery which doesn't seem to work for any length of time. This personal ECG you are developing sounds like something I would definitely be interested in. I've often wondered why something like this hasn't been developed already. I guess accuracy and reliability are some of the biggest issues. Are you using leads for conduction? How is it connected to the human body. Lol I'm so curious now smile.

    • Posted

      Unfortunatelly the mechanism of aFib (or more correctly the various types of aFibs) is not very well understood yet. The ablation may help around 70% of patients (the outcome is the aFib free patient). The pills have far more less efficacy.

      Your guess is good smile. The first thing what I eliminted from the device is the lead connections. Moving leads are great source of artifacts. Our device is directly attached to chest. Basically it is confortable, error and noise free. I can use it even when I riding a mountain byke. 

      But I must emphasize, we are not on the market yet.

  • Posted

    Just wanted to let you know that you are not crazy, the same thing happens to me.  Sometimes I will experience a run of 5 or 6 PVC's rapidly and then end up in SVT with HR around 200 bpm which gets me a trip to ER and a 12mg dose of

    Adenocard ( I hope you have not needed that drug because it's not fun). Good luck and God bless you.

  • Posted

    There is a nerve, called the vagus nerve, that runs thru your abdomen. If this nerve is irritated e.g too much gas in your abdomen, it can trigger AF. You should discuss this with your GP or Cardiologist. It is recommended to eat small meals through out the day, to minimize AF episodes. There is nothing worse than getting AF after eating food.

Report or request deletion

Thanks for your help!

We want the community to be a useful resource for our users but it is important to remember that the community are not moderated or reviewed by doctors and so you should not rely on opinions or advice given by other users in respect of any healthcare matters. Always speak to your doctor before acting and in cases of emergency seek appropriate medical assistance immediately. Use of the community is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and steps will be taken to remove posts identified as being in breach of those terms.