Newly found severe arrhythmia

[edamame]

After the rather unsuccessful FMT treatments back in May, I went back to hospital to search for other related health issues. I have long suspected there was something with my heart due to my extremely cold hands and feet and inability to do intense exercise , so I did an 24h ECG and turned out I have around 20,000 pvcs (Premature ventricular contractions ) per day. I also have mild atherosclerosis. Suggestions from cardiologists are divided between conducting surgery now or finding the root cause (which I believe is ileum crohn's). I also had my blood work done again, my C reactive levels are normal, along with all the immune system indicators, hormone levels are fine too.

Now I am adding these two conditions to my long list of symptoms: Serborrheic D(and mild psoriasis), lower back pain, prostatitis, low sperm quality(19%), ED, hemorrhoids, mild inflammation in every organ? etc.

The ironic thing is that my gastroenterologist says there is no additional treatments needed for my ileum besides mesalazine which I have been taking for several months. And he cannot say if arrhythmia is related.

Not sure what to do next, thought I post again here and maybe get some inspirations from you. So any advice is appreciated, thank you.

 

[SN8888]

Make sure your B12 level is ok. When mine was low I had heart problems (diastolic dysfunction, racing heartbeat, etc).

 

[edamame]

I forget what my b12 level is, almost two years since I checked it. I do have slightly lower iron levels, other minerals are within normal range. Just saw another cardiologist today, he also seems to have no clue how to deal with this besides surgery, I guess b12 shots are worth a try, thanks.

 

[SN8888]

Sublingual (under the tongue) B12 liquid and tablets are ok for most people....but if the cardiologist doesn't think it's a vitamin deficiency or anything like that, then it's probably not going to help.

 

[Daisy26]

Hi
I work in cardiology and I analyse the 24 hour ECGs you are talking about and although I obviously don’t know as much as a dr, I do know that the 20,000 pvcs in 24hrs is quite high but usually they will treat with a beta blocker like bisoprolol? And arrhythmias are commonly caused by vitamin & mineral imbalance. I’m not sure what country you are in bit in the uk mild atherosclerosis (or mild blockage of artery) wouldn’t warrant major surgery, except possibly stents? Basically I don’t want you to worry to much but the heart is amazing and almost everything can be fixed.
Sending much love

 

[edamame]

I am thinking about getting vitamins checked again. The hard thing is not every vitamin test is available. I also have high numbers of bigeminy and trigeminy. I was prescribed with metoprolol, but they are still talking about surgery (the ablation process).

The thing that worries me about blockage is not feeling cold in the winter or my arms not getting enough nutrition through blood flow, is my ED problem. I have brought this up with ED doctor, he said with quite affirmative tone that unless I get my heart rates back to normal, there is little he can do to help.

But I like to believe it is a reversible situation as you said, thanks.

 

[Scipio]

I have both Crohn's and atrial fibrillation (AFib). The AF was diagnosed first and Crohn's a year later, although I had some Crohn's symptoms. for several years prior to the diagnosis of either one. So the docs suspect that the inflammation from the Crohn's triggered the AFib, although they can't say for sure.

Right now both conditions are under control with drugs. I'm on Stelara for the Crohn's and sotolol and Eliquis for the AFib. This forces me to constantly walk a knife-edge edge with respect to bleeding. The Crohn's of course puts me at risk of intestinal bleeding the Eliquis anti-coagulant ensures that any bleeding I do suffer will be excessive and thus put me at risk of anemia and/or catastrophic bleeding. And I have had one bout of severe anemia in all this, which was treated with emergency transfusions and follow-up iron pill therapy.

Right now I'm pretty stable, but there is always a worry. The key appears to be keeping the Crohn's well controlled to avoid any bleeding.

Based on what I know, I'm thinking that PVCs should not require anticoagulation the way AFib does. Have your cardio docs talked about anticoagulation at all? You may want to be aggressive an controlling your heart rhythm and keeping it away from AFib, so the ablation may be a good idea. At the same time you may want to be more aggressive with the Crohn's than just mesalazine in order to avoid intestinal bleeding.

Bleeding from your gut plus anticoagulation for your heart is a bad combination.

 

[edamame]

What is your inflammation level? when C reactive protein level goes down, does it alleviate the AF? For me, there are two moments in a day where my pvcs get worse. One is late afternoon/after dinner, this is also the time I get most Serb.D breakouts and fever like sensations. Another is right after midnight, if I sleep after 12 clock, my heart starts pounding faster/irregular, it becomes quite noticeable over this past 2, 3 years.

No anticoagulation drugs were mentioned. from what I gathered, no one drug can effectively control the heart now? will see the doc in a few days.

I did have a history of sleeping very late, if it is not inflammation induced, then might have something to do with that.

 

[Scipio]

My CRP is quite low now on the Stelara, but it has been high in the past. My AF does not get better or worse, based on inflammation, because it is controlled by a fairly strong heart rhythm drug: sotolol. My AF may well have been triggered by the inflammation at the beginning, but now with the sotolol it stays in sinus rhythm no matter what the Crohn's is currently doing.

 

[edamame]

update: Just had another ECG, results came back showing my PVCs now at almost 25,000/24hrs... the weird thing I noticed is that when I exercise intensely, the numbers dropped by quite a lot, the total heart beat increased, but pvcs dropped. That's not what I expected because I thought pvcs must be interfering with my performance because I feel like throwing up every time I do something intense.