Anyone else have PVCs of the heart?

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Methofelis

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Hey guys ... I know this may not be (or may be .. anxiety + Crohn's = hand-in-hand)
related, but I was recently hospitalized with what I thought may have been a heart attack. Luckily, I was wrong. Turned out I was having what they called PVCs and PACs in a "trigeminy" pattern ... one bad heartbeat, a couple good ones, one bad and so on for a loooooong time. All of my cardio tests proved fine (no heart issues) and it seems to be stress-related. Whether or not they are dangerous, they FREAK ME OUT. It is like someone is knocking on my chest from the inside.

Anyone else ever have this problem?

They put me on blood pressure pills (beat-blockers) but they are not fully working to get rid of them, and I have to follow up with a cardiologist. So weird. :(
 
Hey.. I've never had one diagnosed, butt I have experienced flutters of the heart... where i feel it beating really hard and fast. It went away... but freaked me out too. I am a highly anxious person (ALWAYS worrying) and so I just attributed it to stress.
 
katiesue1506 said:
Hey.. I've never had one diagnosed, butt I have experienced flutters of the heart... where i feel it beating really hard and fast. It went away... but freaked me out too. I am a highly anxious person (ALWAYS worrying) and so I just attributed it to stress.
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Yep, same thing. The only difference for me was that they were frequent enough to cause symptoms (tingling face, pain in chest, dizziness, clouded feeling, et cetera) which was what freaked me out.

People get PVCs all the time ... they either don't feel them or they are so infrequent as to not cause a stir.

I apparently just had an overload of them ... luckily, my heart seems to be structurally sound, so it won't be an issue ... just scary sometimes.
 
Could pred or another med cause such a thing, I realize you said "over a long time" so I'm not sure with your incident, but I'm just wondering...(fine, it's worrying)...
 
BWS1982 said:
Could pred or another med cause such a thing, I realize you said "over a long time" so I'm not sure with your incident, but I'm just wondering...(fine, it's worrying)...
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Well, it started before I ever took prednisone, and I've been off for a few weeks now.

One thing I did notice last night/this morning -- the worst of the PVC attacks occur after eating. I had dinner the other night -- a salad -- and they were bad. Last night, during dinner, they became even worse after a mostly good day. This morning, I started to eat -- and they started to come back after not being there all morning.

Not sure what any of this means ... Though I did find a TON of connections between IBS/GERD and PVCs/Anxiety disorders. So far it seems benign, from what I'm reading.

Hopefully a cardio will accept an insurance-free person like myself to put my mind at ease. :confused2:
 
Something to think about is our absorption of potassium and magnesium. I have poor absorption of potassium and it was proven when I was in hospital last summer when I also had PVC's with my heart thudding in my chest even at rest. A PVC is a Premature Ventricular Contraction.

There are 4 chambers in the heart: top two are Atria, bottom two and the biggest two are ventricles.

All a PVC is is a slightly early contraction of the ventricles. It most commonly is caused by slight electrolyte imbalance like lower potassium (K+).

You could try taking foods with a higher potassium element like a small glass of orange juice, or a banana etc if you can tolerate them gut wise. Then see if your feelings continue... does that make sense?

I can usually tell now and just boost my high K+ foods and it resolves. So dont worry about it. DO get a cardio opinion to be safe. But its something you can try in the meantime.

Your heart is also anatomically close to your stomach and you may just be stimulating the vagus nerve that is triggering it with eating (folk believe it or not have had stomach problems and its been thought to be cardiac when it isnt so all aspects need to be explored). Anxiety as you say can be a contributing factor. But sometimes these things have the simplest answers.

Just a thought with me pondering out loud.

Hope you get answers soon.
 
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I have had this on and off most of my life. I have connected it to excessive caffeine and nicotine. I imagine most any other stimulant could cause this also. I would suspect the stimulants aggravate the condition, but are not the cause.

I have had it happen for several seconds and I just slam my chest with the palm of my hand and it seems to stop it. Since I cut back on my coffee I have not had it happen much.

I have been supplementing Magnesium lately, but I do not know if it helps this or not from personal experience.

Black Tea has vitamin K. It thickens the blood slightly.

Dan
 
It is strange to other people. My wife freaks when I do this. She made me go to a doctor many years ago, but everything was normal. It does not happen often enough to really diagnose it.

I described it as my heart beating backwards. Seems like it is out of sequence or something like that.

I had a longer than usual episode quite a few years ago. It did not want to straighten out and it actually hurt some. So I finally slammed my chest to try get it to stop, and it quit immediately. I kind of wonder if it will just kill me one of these days.

It is nice to have some kind of explanation for it.

Dan
 
Dan,

Excessive nicotine and caffeine can increase the heart rate faster than a normal 60-100bpm (depending on resting or active). This is known as tachycardia - fast heart rate.

This is different from PVC. Believe it or not coffee contains a higher amount of potassium than any other beverage. I have been told to use decaf coffee by my gastro dietitian if I can tolerate it as I cannot tolerate orange juice or bananas.

Your heart ticks over on calcium, sodium and potassium moving in and out of the cells. Magnesium can have an impact on these but cannot replace deficiency.

The aspect you describe of your heart beating out of sequence or beating backwards could/might be to do with the top two chambers of the heart (atria) firing off their own signals rather than one single cell in the top right atria sending a pacemaking single down a specific route. It is called AF or Atrial Fibrillation. This can also be triggered by lower potassium levels. All it is is an irregular rythm causing your heart to beat in an irregular way rather than the normal bump, bump, bump so it maybe goes bumpbump, bump, bump, bump, bumpbumpbump.

The hitting your chest that you mentioned may just kick it back into sequence again but more often than not just lessens the force of the single beat being fired from the wrong place hence you are less aware of it and it just resolves itself.

The only way it would be diagnosed is if you had an ECG whilst it was happening or your doctor could feel the difference when you have an irregular pulse if it happens. Many folk have it with no problems. But it is good to monitor it and also to have it reviewed by medical staff again.

So if you have another long spell of the same feeling dont worry about it, listen to your wife and GO! ;-)
 
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Thanks for the replies, guys. I am trying to get into a cardio, but it is hard finding one that will take me. Always want me to pay an arm and a leg.

I have been taking magnesium, vitamin E and CoQ10 while drinking Gatorade since yesterday, along with Prilosec to see if it is acid reflux disturbing the vagus nerve. Yesterday was a bit better, but today so far has been pretty good. It always seems to get worse at night before bed, or when I eat food. I've been eating terribly little lately because of it. After my bout over the weekend, it would seem like I was in trigeminy (with some bigeminy) of both PVCs and PACs for hours (and I was :( ) but today it seems to be every once in a while. The beta-blockers keep sending me into bradycardia, though (heart BPM under 50) seeing as how my normal resting heart rate is 61-69, so I have to watch out for that.

I haven't tried hitting my chest ... a bit nervous too, really.

I know that if it had been caused by a mitral valve prolapse they would have heard it of have seen it on the echocardiogram they did on me, so I'm doubting it is that.

Hopefully a cardio will be able to let me know soon if they are benign and caused by something else, or more serious. So far, though, aside from the slightly painful symptoms over the weekend and some dizziness, they seem to be ok. I have heard that if they really were a sign of a bigger problem, I would hardly be able to walk up a flight of stairs or run at all without keeling over, so ... we'll see. They don't seem to be related to exertion much, aside from standing up too fast, which is understandable.

Dan -- when you say that they hurt, where and how? I seem to get a tightness in the chest and some clavicle pain.

And ... my smoking doesn't seem to have any effect on it, for some reason. I have cut back, though, just to be safe. I have only had one cup of coffee since this last Saturday, too.
 
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I only hurt when it kept going for a longer period of time. Even then, it was more of an uncomfortable feeling not sharp pain. It is hard to describe but it feels like it is beating at the wrong time, like a half beat in between normal beats. Normally it will do it for one or two beats and then it is gone. It rarely goes on longer than that.

Yours sounds more frequent than mine, so it should be checked out. They could monitor my heart for three months or longer and it may never do it in that time.

Just today I ran across an article linking high vitamin E intake increasing the chance of Lung Cancer for people who smoke. It was on Dr. Mercola's web site. I think the increase was 25% for smokers. Apparently vitamin E is an antioxident to a point, but if you go beyond a certain amount it becomes an oxidizer. Just thought I would mention it since you said you were taking E. A little is good but you do not want to take megadoses. Of course five years from now the conclusions may all change, as these things tend to do.

Dan
 
Vitamin E I thought was water soluable, and thus, you can find supps with it containing something like 1333% RDA of it etc...I know too much of anything is possible, but I figured E was like C and D and such, where it's harder to get too much (unlike I know vitamin A and others...)
 
Just came from my Emergency First Aid/CPR refresher course. Instructor is an ER dr.. Anyway, something came across his desk from Health Canada (our Federal Dept in charge of Health, healthcare, hospitals, etc., etc.) which is both advisory and a regulatory board... They are distributing the following info to the medical world (or at least the Canadian part of it) about the most recently discovered 'threat' to ones heart health. Wanna know what 'they' are saying?

The old addage/advisory about drinking 8 glasses of water a day. Turf it. 'They' now say it causes such an imbalance of electrolytes that it damages the heart. The 'new' rule is 5 glasses of water maximum; with the remaining three being either juices or something along the lines of gatorade. The only exception to the new 'guideline' is if a.) one has exercized to the point of dehydration OR b.) if one is in a hi temperature low humidity environment for an extended period.

So, folks, how much water have you been drinking? I was drinking, wellll, lo N behold... 64 fluid ounces, which is 8 x 8 ounce glasses... on my DR's orders.
 
That's fine and dandy, but what are they basing such info off of? That's quite outlandish sounding to say the least, hyponatremia (excess water consumed to the point of too much for the cells, they become "overwatered") is hard to do, and that's upwards of 2 gal/day. I've been somewhere around .75/gal a day of just water, and other liquids here and there....
 
Wellll, 64 fluid ounces is 1/2 US gallon... and has been the SOP to advise all folks to target towards as the 'optimum' intake of water. A friend of mine who is a long term fitness freak (a harsh term, but he still works with weights 3 hrs a day 6 days a week - his wife insists he take a break N spend sundays with the family) is a water holic... based mostly on his hi fitness lifestyle and his training regimen...

Anyway, studies conducted for Health Canada has determined that such levels of intake actually flush electrolytes out of the body; alarmingly impacting heart health... when they started pursuing this study, those aspects weren't even on their radar. Anyway, I dunno if this will trickle out to the rest of the world. A lot of places dismiss medical news from Canada as we're considered way too conservative... mostly the opinion of big business which doesn't like the way our government takes an interest in the health of Canadian citizens. After all, our government gives us free health care (at least to a limited extent)..
 
Hah .. figures about the vitamin E. Should have known one of these was going to be harmful somehow, as most things go.

Well ... I'm still chugging the Gatorade and "eating" mostly Boost drinks. Seems to be helping in a way, along with the antacids and vitamins. Hopefully it is just a deficiency of some sort or a product of acid reflux.

As to getting it checked out -- while in the hospital, they did an echo test and had a cadio review my case twice ... apparently he saw no cause for concern. It doesn't seem to be a structural issue with my heart. I just want another cardio to check me out to be 100% sure.

... And it seems to be a good thing that I cut back on the water during this, too, if it is that much of a sap on the electrolytes. Assuming docs got it right this time.
 
I had heard that you are supposed to take your body weight and divide by 2... and thats the number of ounces you should drink. IE... 140 pounds would yield 70 ounces of water... but that isn't including the water they we get from foods and juices and such.
 
There never was any basis for the eight glasses of water a day. I questioned this quite a few years ago because it seemed nonsensical that your body would not get thirsty when you needed it. I tried to find a source for the amount and never could.

When you think about it, your body should be pretty good at regulating such a basic function.

Unless you are dehydrated due to illness, drinking when you are thirsty should suffice.

Dan
 
Well, I still believe in drinking a good amount (I come from the fitness world of science though, as I read about that for years before Crohns) of water, but believe yes, there is a "too much", but that not many of us hit it. In general all I've seen states that the majority of the time any excess water is just urinated out, helping to flush the body, not of electrolytes. It takes a LOT to start up hyponatremia....I guess we'll just see where Canada's findings go like Kev said, and see how the rest of the science community takes it.

But to add to something Bergy, when you are "thirsty" that is when you are already dehydrated, hence the high recommendation of consumption (which if you go to any bodybuilding/fitness forum, they'll push a standard recommendation for 1 gallon a day for us guys, though we tend to get bigger when you're talking 200-250 lb athletes with lots of muscle...). Thirst is supposedly the body's way of saying you're already short on water, not you're going to be short.
 
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Benson, good point about dehydration being highlighted by thirst. You are very right on that one.

The best way to gauge your own water intake to ensure your urine by around midday is clear and light in colour and that it stays that way across the rest of the day. Remember your urine will naturally be dark in the morning as your body doesnt stop filtering waste just because you are sleeping. By drinking enough fluid for YOU you are helping to flush your renal system through (kidneys in particular) and helping them to do their job. Without enough fluid they cant filter the waste effectively. This means drinking regular amounts say 150-200mls at a time (the average cup or glass).

If you increase your intake yes you will run to the loo alot more to achieve the above but your body will adjust as long as it is within reasonable limits and you are not drinking 3+ litres a day as say an undiagnosed diabetic would. Each individuals requirements vary according to weather conditions, state of health and what they are doing across their day i.e. a sedentry or physical job.

The other thing to bear in mind is if we are running to the loo alot on the diahorrea front we will deplete our fluid and electrolyte reserves so again we each need to monitor our own changing needs according to what our IBD is doing.

If you dont drink enough your body will hang on to what fluid it does get and you can end up with puffy hands and ankles as the body thinks there is a drought.

So balance is important folks. The AVERAGE person needs 1.5lit a day to go about general daily life. We get up to 70% of our water from the solid food we eat. So think about us and our IBD and the implications of that and the thirst element Benson raised... If you are wondering why I am so definate about this keep in mind I work with folk who are very ill, see fluid overload and dehydration on a daily basis and also use equipment similar to dialysis that both filters the waste and titrates fluid overload when they are in heart and or kidney failure.

Think you will find A,D,E and K are all fat soluble vitamins (just an afterthought)

Hope that makes sense?
 
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Just to make sure that I didn't confuse anyone... the 'experts' here aren't saying a persons daily 'fluid' intake should decrease, they are still advising a minimum of 64 fluid ounces... but the maximum glasses of water (and I'm ASSuming it excludes water from solid foods) 'they' currently advise is 5... Again, an ASSumption, but I think 'they' see this figure as a 'supplemental' one apart from the fluids derived from solid foods, etc., possibly due to assuming a typical adult would have a varied diet from day to day, making calculation of the intake from these sources problematic/impossible. The ER doc who passed on this info is a fitness freak himself... martial arts, marathon, iron man AND hang glider (you'd think an ER doc would have more sense?). He said he was guilty of overindulging in H20 himself.... and was now digging into this purely from a personal interest perspective... keenly interested to see what potential harm he's done to himself over the years. And the adviso's on dehydration still do take the normal limits into consideration... i.e. circumstances over-ride them.
 
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I think that if you are thirsty, it merely means your body is telling you that water is needed well before the point of dehydration. Just as my hunger tells me I need food well before starvation. I have no study to back this up, but my inclination is that we would not be so poorly constructed as to have very basic survival functions so flawed. Of course illness or other extreme circumstances can interfere with this mechanism, but I am speaking about an average healthy person in normal circumstances.

The problem I have with stating minimums and maximums is that there are about a hundred variables that play into how much water you need. I just think it is kind of strange that I have this thing that tells me when I need water and yet I am supposed to ignore it and do some calculation instead. Even though it has served me well all of these years.

I agree that if you know ahead of time that some vigorous exercise of some kind is coming your way you can drink a lot a water as you know you will be losing it. I had a job in which I could not drink enough water to keep up with the heat. I had early signs of heat exhaustion, and luckily I quickly got moved out of that job. For hours afterwards I was drinking lots of water, and had a pounding headache. I do not do well in the heat anyway. My ancestors were from the Arctic regions, not the desert.

I think in the case of illness, such as the flu water should be monitored. These kind of feverish illnesses seems to throw off the bodies ability to determine thirst.

Interesting discussion.

Dan
 
OK, let me throw some more water on the fire... ;-) Increased thirst could tell me that I'm thirsty, or dehydrated, or diabetic. Lack of thirst... hey, I recall being at a point where the prospect of drinking a glass of water was on par with chewing up the glass and swallowing it. Think these 'guidelines' (when or if they are correct) are akin to advisories on how much sleep to get a nite, or how much to exercise.

Ever have a relative, like a maiden but-insky aunt, who had the 'perfect' plan on how 'you' could live the 'perfect' life? Think the experts are all of that ilk.
 
I have trouble with the whole you need to drink this much water in a day. I'll drink 2-3 glasses a day of either juice or tea and that'll be it. I'm just going to try to add ice to my drinks from now on.

Which makes me wonder that juice and tea can't clean out your system as well? My Kidneys are working overtime?
 
AD, many folk get by on less fluid a day and are well used to it. It really doesnt matter how you look at fluid. I used water as the main word because at the end of the day ALL drinks contain water, doesnt matter whether its tea, coffee, fruit juice etc. The aim is to have fluid to help the body stay comfortably hydrated. As I said in my last post balance is the word. Excess of anything is not good for us. So yes you are perfectly right that juice and tea can clean out your system too. Can you expand a bit on your thought about your kidneys working overtime?

Dan, having a thirst does show fluid depletion in the body. That means it technically can be seen as a sign of early dehydration. There are other signs for more severe dehydration like losing the elasticity of you skin, oral dryness, sunken eyes - depends on how severe it is.

Kev, think your comments are fair. My other thought would be that day in day out there is always something else that we should either be doing on not doing i.e. one day chicken or eggs are bad for you the next they are good. We cant win can we!
 
78749-FART
 
I can't resist complicating things a little bit.

Coffee and Tea are diuretics along with any other caffeinated drinks. Cranberry Juice is also in the same category.

I would think they would not count toward the amount of water you should consume.

Yes, No, Maybe?

Dan
 
Isn't alcohol in the same class? So, if we've consumed too much water in the past, the 'best' thing for our hearts is to go out and get plastered.. Keeping in mind the 'crohnies' cheer... "Bottom's down"
 
Oooh look out Dan's wheels are turning can hear them from here ;-)

Yes they still can be counted because they have water/fluid at the end of the day. As you rightly say though some drinks do have a diuretic effect and therefore folk need to be aware of this if they are already depleted or likely to have the effect impact on them alot and also need to bear in mind the long term effects of high strengths of such drinks for instance.

On the diuretic aspect the reason they work is because they increase the heart rate therefore the kidneys are perfused faster and the result is offloading of fluid. Unlike diruetic drugs which will work on a specific area of the kidney to offload fluid in a specific way.

Another thought Dan though from your thought perspective would be if you are drinking such drinks you are possibly defeating the purpose of drinking to begin with! So I can see the point you are making on that front. However, every one varies in their response and length of time it occurs over and those who drink such drinks in high quantity and strength need more of the same over a period of time to have that impact because the body adjusts.

Increased heart rate and increased blood pressure as a result of the increased heart rate are not a good thing long term eh?

Kev you are very right alcohol dehydrates too. Have you ever heard of the other name for guiness? LIFFY WATER because the water for it comes from the river Liffy. ;-)
 
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I didn't know about the Liffy Water, or the river Liffy (thank god the 'L' is there). I recall when my father had 2/3's of his stomach surgically removed due to ulcers. The surgeon prescribed Guiness Medicinal Stout... a very dark and heavy beer. He recovered from his surgery in 8 bed male ward. In it were a couple of fellows who had been hospitalized (the hospital at the time was owned/run by the Sisters of Charity) for no other reason than to dry out. This had been imposed on them... essentially a church/hospital/fmaily intervention in the days before the term intervention was used (at least for cases like these).
With every meal (except breakfast) Dad would receive 2 or more bottle of stout
while a couple of drying out room-mates would lay there and just drool. I guess it would make some folks, who don't consider alcoholism an 'illness', just laugh at the situation. Poor Dad was never a big drinker... the only times he did was vacation, holidays, that sort of thing. If one saw it in a movie comedy or farce I guess it would be funny... sort of like 'Carry On in the Hospital', but who would believe it? Maybe it was just their kharma... it would never happen these days.

OK, enuff ramblng down memory lane of things that happened 30 years ago... I just thought that someone, esp. a nurse, might get a kick out of the way things used to be...
 
You know I am just messing with you Soup.

But it does seem that there are many variables in this water drinking thing. Gads, I will need to start a spreadsheet or something to keep track and do calculations.

I was not aware of how caffeinated beverages worked for the diuretic effect. Thanks for the explanation. I sure do seem to pick up a lot from your posts.

Beer as a treatment. I bet not too many people would object to that prescription. I wonder if they actually had some kind of reason for that recommendation?

Dan
 
they used to recommend guiness to expectant mothers too, about 40-50 years ago. i think (could be wrong here) that it has iron in it, and that was the reason.
 
soupdragon69 said:
Dan, having a thirst does show fluid depletion in the body. That means it technically can be seen as a sign of early dehydration. There are other signs for more severe dehydration like losing the elasticity of you skin, oral dryness, sunken eyes - depends on how severe it is.
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Dan, this is what I was going to say, but the nurse beat me to it. :)

different levels of "dehyrdration", just like different calibers of "starvation", first is hunger, then fatigue, organ shut downs, etc......eventually, death....

I don't think the average Western civilization member is even going more than about 5 glasses a day in the first place. From what I see in everyday life of individuals around me, it's rare people just drink plain ol' water, seems everyone around me has a bottle of some concoction at hand 24/7, although many times it's spring water, most it seems it's something else...
 
Hi Dan, Yep I knew you were thats why I started my post as I did ;-) Stout used to be prescribed because of the high iron content to boost patients that had low haemaglobin etc

Kev, we still have it prescribed or sherry or a tot of whiskey. The reason? So many folk today dont own up to how much they really drink they have no idea how important it is to tell the truth - its up to them how much they drink but we cant effectively care for them if they dont tell us. If they smoke as well and dont tell the truth (can make it harder to get someone off a ventilator) about that pre op and run into post op problems then going into massive withdrawal on top of everything isnt a good thing to fight. So to try and help them through the worst of it they are prescribed one drink in the evenings if they are not sedated. Means they are more likely to comply with any care planned too and so aid their recovery. Some days you can almost hear it hiss as they sink it ;-)

Benson, good post sorry I beat you to it! Will refrain in future honest ;-) You are right though so many folk have concoctions and are into fizzy drinks, isotonic this and that and half of them have no idea what they are drinking.
 
Ohhh, I need to be hospitalized in the UK.. Free liqour N tobacco. Only thing missing (for the inevitable time that I might need it)... is free prescription of viagara. Did I tell you that, here in Canada, our 'Veterans' are entitled to 6 viagara a month for free? I don't know where/how.. they came up with that number specifically, but it apparently is a 'welcome' benefit by the vets. I've no info on whether their wives appreciate it so much (no pun intended there tho).
 
See now I only said booze said nowt bout ciggies.

As for the casino may as well be as some of the hospitals have shopping centres on the ground floor ;-)

Hmmm night nurse uniforms from Fredericks eh? Would like to see that one myself! Just goes to show what a bunch of old bores we really are eh? ;-)
 
Well, to be slightly more serious for a moment; was a time when gambling wasn't legal here... except for the occasional church bingo or community group raffle. It was slowly intro'd in Canada.. a gov't run lottery to pay for items like Worlds Fair or Olympics... then that spread to regions N provinces. Each level of government 'licensed' a private corp to run things; and took a percentage of the take. now it accounts for serious amounts of revenues, and a little 'burg' like this has several casinos, and practically every liqour licensed establishment has video slot or poker machines. Hey, one can even legally gamble online now

Millions of dollars of revenue, some of it going to fund medical services, etc.. And a growing problem of gambling addiction, with little/no assistance from the government in dealing with the problem 'they' created. Except for the odd tv ad telling folks to just say no to gambling, or how to recognize an addiciton.
They haven't gone so far to allow lotto booths, or poker machines in hospitals, but there is computer access; and the in hospital private pharmacys can SELL lottery tickets; so it really isn't that far off an assessment of the situation here.
OK, enuff pontificating. Next time I start a sermon like this, someone please pass around the collection plate, OK? I'll split it with you, and buy some tickets.

As for nurses uni's from Fredericks; that's more of an inside joke. But, mostly due to my age; or the respect, values, whatever, of the generation I grew up in (but apparently failed to 'mature' in).. there was just some 'connotation' , or at least 'recognition' of the traditional nurses uniform... that seems to have stuck with me. Be it the starched whites, or the nurses cap whose shape, style and markings indicated the teaching hospital or school of nursing where the nurse graduated from... but there was something both.. professional N re-assuring.. about those uni's... yet at the same time appealing on a different level. Shame they've been replaced here (Canada N the US at least) by things that look like one is being tended to by the char lady... eeer, cleaning staff. Oversized frocks covered in flowers, patterns, what have you... shapeless, undistinctive, looks for all the world like something a grammar school teacher might put on to teach little kids how to finger paint. Oh, well, just showing my antequated thinking...
 
Many people have a "nurse" thing, Kev, it's okay. :ycool:

Just remember how the internet works and be careful of searching for the said retro nurse uniform....
 
Welll, I don't think they offer them in my size... (there's a mental image that have you all running to the bathroom for a totally different reason)..

Fredericks DO offer what they call "Nurse's Uniforms" (in their fantasy department) Problem is they are really more of a parody, or charicature, of the real uniforms. It's a shame that they took their version to such extremes. I did have the occasion (actually several), when I moved up here originally with my kids and entered the local dating scene... For whatever reason, perhaps it has to do with the hours; or perhaps it's because nurses can afford to live on their sole salary, or perhaps it just the sheer number of hospitals/clinics in the area, but there is an abundance of single or divorced nurses in the dating community

The nurses that I dated were all wonderful people, and were more or less of my generation... so they originally wore the uniforms I'm referring to. In most cases, they had either turfed them; or they no longer would fit. Fortunately, I met someone who had hung onto it; and on whom it still fit to perfection. Sigh!

You know, none of us can predict how long we'll live; or what our end will be. I just hope that mine doesn't involve Alzheimers. Some things I would hate to forget...

And, speaking of forgetting, seems I've forgotten my manners. Here I've gone and hijacked this thread, THEN kept referring back to this off topic nonsense. My sincerest apologies...
 
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Kev - your comments ARE related to this thread.
Skimpy nurse outfits CAN make your heart beat funny. See?
Also, imagining you in one made MY heart skip a beat - but in a very different way.
(Hey - you suggested it first.......)
 
Think this is where the ole fight or flight kicks in... Kev in a nurses uniform of the type he is speaking of.. I think I run away every time - hey bathroom here I come!

;-)
 
For some odd reason, scenes from the movie 'Nuns on the Run' flashed thru my brain (grant you, it's a non stop trip).. I remember Robby Coltraine.. and the other fellow was one of the Monty Python crewe, but I can't think of his name.

Anyway, to get serious for a mo, and back on track. Methofelis, you may not want to hear the following... BUT, over 30 years back, my mom was diagnosed with a heart condition; and placed on patch therapy. Two years ago this fall, a new doctor spotted something; ordered some more tests, did some imaging... and presto! Mom's heart diagnosis was a mis-diagnosis. She had an anuerism (sp? I know I missed a y in there someplace - oh that cursed 'spell check') that had been growing inside her the entire time. Wrapped around the old pumper, it was slowly strangling her heart. By the time this new doc discovered it, they gave her less than a week... and only about a 5 - 10% chance of surviving the operation. But, with her devil may care attitude, she insisted on the surgery, as... well, according to all of the docs now onside with the diagnosis, death was the only other option. Anyway, this is neither meant to bore or alarm you. Just a true but cautionary tale that, if there are issues with the heart, ignoring them isn't one's best choice; unless one can poop 4 leaf clovers like my mom.
 
Well... if your mom is pooping four leaf clovers... she could have another issue... they call it Pica. Its the eating of things that aren't normally eaten...

I'm just jesting of course... but your mother seems like quite a lucky lady from the stories I've heard!
 
Welll, having not witnessed the act, I'm just guessing. But considering her close calls, near misses, etc.. AND her extremely reckless disregard for all things health connected.... it's either 4 leaf clovers, rabbits feet or horseshoes... or all three.
 
Well, if she's pooping whole rabbits feet, she needs to check out Benson's thread on chewing your food too fast.
Pooping out a horseshoe? Ouch.
 
I've tried that for luck.

What about pooping out an entire Leprechaun? I swear I need to chew my food, but the little bugger wouldn't stop squirming.
 
Being a leprechaun I have been in folks chests where I work but NEVER been in anyones guts Benson I promise!! ;-)
 
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Hmmm, just in case something got lost in the translation... common saying in my neck of the woods with regards to someone with extra-ordinary luck, is they are said to have a horseshoe up their ass (or in more polite settings, a rabbits foot up their backside, or they sat naked in a bed of four leaf clover)... You get my drift?
 
Yes Kev - we get it. We're just being silly.
I always choke on the rabbit fur on those dang feet.

Benson - you need to GRILL the leprechaun first.
That'll stop him from squirming.
 
Brings me back to why it's so easy to make Irish Coffee, yet so much harder to make Irish Tea... the big challenge is convincing the leprechaun to soak his bag in your cup.
 
Kev said:
Brings me back to why it's so easy to make Irish Coffee, yet so much harder to make Irish Tea... the big challenge is convincing the leprechaun to soak his bag in your cup.
Click to expand...

:lol:
 
Thanks for the heads up, Kev.

And thanks for making this about booze, babes, smoking and gambling. More my idea of fun than heart problems. :ycool:

I did, years ago, have a full cardiac work-up (stress test, echo, CT scan, the works) and they found nothing but the mildest and most boring of heart murmurs, which most people have anyway. They did another echo and didn't hear it again, so it was probably just a childhood thing (which is common.)

Right now it seems to be related to my Crohn's, which (crappily enough) would suggest it is affecting my stomach and esophagus right now. Not great, but I can deal with that. I'm going to a GI on the 1st.

Now where is my beer?
 
Same thing happens to me!

Back to The Topic
Methofelis said:
Well, it started before I ever took prednisone, and I've been off for a few weeks now.

One thing I did notice last night/this morning -- the worst of the PVC attacks occur after eating. I had dinner the other night -- a salad -- and they were bad. Last night, during dinner, they became even worse after a mostly good day. This morning, I started to eat -- and they started to come back after not being there all morning.

Not sure what any of this means ... Though I did find a TON of connections between IBS/GERD and PVCs/Anxiety disorders. So far it seems benign, from what I'm reading.

Hopefully a cardio will accept an insurance-free person like myself to put my mind at ease. :confused2:
Click to expand...

I tried to tell my doc about the heart beats going crazy afte eating and he looked at me like I was crazy!

Anyway, during my yearly colonoscopy my doc found that I had Tachycardia with PAC's. I had an echo done on my heart and it looked great. No one can explain it to me. I have cut back on the caffine (not that I had much to begin with, other than a coffee a day) and started taking some medicine for anxiety which has helped a lot. I wonder if my heart issue stems from medications I have been on for the Crohn's though. I have tried just about everything under the sun and it kinda scares me.

If you find out anything more, please post again.
 
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