Hi everyone. :) New to the board.

A little background info first...

I'm from Long Island. I'm a 22 y/o female. I'm 5'4" and am packing a few extra .lbs. I do data entry for a living and take an occasional walk with my boyfriend from time to time. My office is upstairs so I get decent exercise going up and down stairs all day.

For the past year or so I've been getting these horrible pains in my chest that would paralyze me. Inhaling or moving any part of my body would exacerbate the pain. The pains would last a minute or two and then go away. I would just feel my heart racing afterwards for a little while.

I finally decided to go see my doctor about it Nov. 10th. Since I said I was having chest pains, they did an EKG on me and it came back saying Premature Ventricular Contractions and she had me get blood work and a chest x-ray done and also referred me to a cardiologist.

Nov. 13th I got everything done. At the cardiologist's office, I got anothe EKG and she compared it to the one at the doctor's office. They looked identical. She hooked me up to the Holter monitor for 24 hours. I dropped it off Tuesday night and another doctor just called me this morning and said that I have A LOT of irregular beats on the monitor. I did less than my normal routine when I was wearing it, too. She scheduled me for an arrythmia consult next Wednesday.

I like to think of myself as like a wall.. nothing can bug me. Honestly though, I'm very scared. Heart problems run in both sides of my family. My grandfather on my dads side had a heart attack (though he did not die from it..he died from lung cancer) and my grandmother on my mother's side had congestive heart failure and she has hard arteries (If I recall correctly..)

I don't drink coffee. I don't smoke. I drink socially, which only really comes out to be maybe once every two months. I have been exposed to second hand smoke my entire lifetime though (my parents and one sister smoke) and am wondering if that would be a factor in this? I'm not too educated on this, so please accept my apology if any of my questions are well... dumb. My oldest sister at the age of 32 starting to need an inhaler because of what the effects of second hand smoke had done to her lungs.

I guess I'm really just wondering if anyone else has this.. is it no big deal? Just some pills and you'll be fine? Or do I have a right to be worried since I have this already at my age.

I don't believe it was something I was born with because my pediatrician was the best and would've caught it. I just really had a ton of sore throats as a child, that's all.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance and I apologize for the ginormous wall of text. :D

Hello welcome to this site! Do they believe that you have fast arrhythmias or slow ones, I wasn't clear on that. You said you have many skipped beats. I do but have serious fast heart rates at given times. Is this your problem they think? You said you like to think of yourself as a wall and not much bothers you; I am the same way with pain and colds so if I'm in pain I know that I am. You should be cautious about it all until you are checked out. It could be very serious and maybe not. Do not count out the fact that you were born with it. I believe that I had the greatest drs when I was young also, but some diseases progress with age and are not detected until 20's or 30's when they become life altering.I was born with mine and by the grace of God I am still here.No one knew I had a rare and serious heart disease even though for years I was misdiagnosed with the wrong heart disorder. Not all tests show certain heart abnormalities. Even an echo missed mine. All things made no sense to the drs but I knew what I felt. Go with your gut it sounds like you know your body well. I would not panic right now, but lean on the side of safety for yourself. Yes you can be born with abnormalities that even x-rays growing up won't show or no symptoms they thought were related to it at the time. There were incidences in my childhood where I fainted for no reason, they called it a virus then, simply because they would've never thought of a normal, active, outgoing, child to have heart issues. Maybe it was viruses, but as I got older I had tiredness, dizziness, fainty spells that got worse with time. Does this sound familiar for you maybe at all? I am only 35yo and now have an ICD implanted due to the fast rates. What is your fast rate or slow rate do you know? I was very surprised to find out that I was born with my disease, they were surprised when they found the correct diagnosis that it had not shown up during my children's births. My dr says some peoples "born with" heart problems are brought on by viruses as an adult. I hope I have helped you and not confused you.

I believe it's fast ones. The cardiologist was explaining to me how the EKG works and she said it's like my hearts doing the waltz. It's like 1, 2, 3 and then another one right after it and then it takes a while for my heart to reset itself.

I'm scheduled for a stress echo on Dec. 13 and a regular echo on Dec. 20th. I'm still waiting for an appointment for the cardiac MRI she wants me to get.

As for any type of symptoms.. Um, well, I'm always kinda tired. Started back in Jr. High school and has gotten slightly better. Back then I got all sorts of blood tests taken to see if there was something causing my fatigue. They didn't come up with anything.

I don't know exactly how many beats there are. I probably won't know until I go back on Wednesday.

You said you have children? My boyfriend is very worried about this. He told me the other day he was thinking all day, worried about whether or not this would be one of those things that, during labor, would just end up killing the mother. I haven't found anything to suggest that, thankfully.

And no, you didn't confuse me. :) I just wish I had more info right now. The wait 'til Wednesday is gonna kill me!

Hello-
I am 44 and very recently suddenly began having LOTs of PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions). I do not have sharp chest pains, though. Anyway, I have been seeing a cardio who assures me that, AS LONG AS there are no structural problems with the heart, a person can have tons of these PVCs with little ill effects beyond the fatigue they cause. I've had the echo and discovered I have MINOR valve disease. And now I have just learned that my nuclear stress test came back just fine. So, in my case, it appears I have nothing serious wrong with my heart and I must learn to deal with these PVCs. I am on a beta-blocker and I think it is helping to take the edge off. I clocked 14,500 PVCs in 24 hours back in Oct and I topped 30,400three weeks ago.
I think it is great that you are having this looked into from every angle. It is horribly distressing, I know. There are heart problem that cause this type of arhythmia. I just wanted you to know that it is possible to have these PVCs and not be at risk for serious heart disease.
I wish you the best of luck - Suzy-Q

Dorkchopqueen,

There are good herbal remedies in homeopathic preparation which can almost be as good as "just some pills and your are fine". But will need to know more about the type of pains and othet associated symtoms to help you find the right one.

Hi again everyone. Thank you for all your replies. I went back to the cardio yesterday and she had some news for me.

First off, she told me that I had 19000 skipped beats in a 24 hour period according to my holter monitor. She's saying that I have ventricular tachycardia. She asked me what tests I had done. I told her just the EKG and the monitor. I told her my other tests weren't until mid December. She wasn't having that. Now my echo is tomorrow at 1 PM and when that's done, I have to get my stress echo rescheduled. My cardiac MRI is December 4th.

The MRI is the one thing I am totally petrified about. I have a huge issue with lying still if I'm nervous. Has anyone else gotten this done? What exactly does it entail?

I know my cholesterol is high... it's 217 according to my blood work. I'm hoping this is something that's related to that and not one of the other things she was saying could cause this. So, hopefully, I get my cholesterol down and this thing calms down a bit.

I did have an MRI because of my symptoms of heart problems( in an emergency way) The MRI is not to be feared unless you have serious issues with confined spaces. What happens is you are put in a tunnel like machine usually not to much bigger than your body nor more than about 4" from your face. You lay in there as still as possible and have to hold your breathe for a certain count, then breathe out, and such. It seemed like to me it took forever to get it done, because they want all angles of the heart while they are in there. I guess in actuality i proabably layed there 30-45 mins. I'm not fond of being flat on my back, but you can talk to the people inside the booth if you need to. If they think you might need a PM or ICD they will want to get as much info from the MRI; as you will not be able to have another if you ever have an implant. You could ask for something to calm you down prior to having the procedure done. They can give you a low dose of an anti-anxiety pill to just help you relax. My dad has heart problems and is easily fidgetty and nervous in certain situations. They always give him a low dose so that he can get through the procedure, because you don't want to redo it. I can't remember which procedures he had the pills with, be he has for most of them.
Just ask your dr prior to the procedure and let them know you get nervous sometimes, he/she should understand. Best of wishes. Feel good in having the MRI it should show just about everything in your heart that is wrong, that other tests like echo's, nuclear, ekg and other tests could possibly miss.By the way I am 35yo.

It's not so much the confined space I'm having trouble with, it's the staying still. They did another EKG on me on Friday and I was having such a hard time staying still.

I also have back pains, so laying flat on my back on a flat board is really quite uncomfortable for me. I'll definitely have to say something to her when I got back Wednesday for my Stress echo.

I'm really, really nervous about all this. My family is really worried. Especially my mother and grandmother. I found out exactly how much of my family has heart problems. My grandfather on my father's side had a heart attack. My grandmother on my mother's side had congestive heart failure last year. My mother's grandfather died of a heart attack at 57. Then my mother's uncle had heart disease and he had a daughter with a woman and the daughter died at a young age due to the heart problems he passed onto her. Heart problems are just incredibly rampant in my family history.

I have another question for anyone who might know. When they do the regular echo and the person takes all the pictures of your heart, they send it out to be analyzed, right? I'm pretty sure they do this. My mom is confused as to why the girl didn't say anything about my heart while she was doing it. I 'm under the impression she just takes pictures, a specialist studies the photos.

Thank you for your info on the MRI. I didn't want to get into this not knowing exactly what was going to happen.

Okay so my cardio just called me about the results from my echo and she said I have a leaky valve and gave me the whole talk about whenever I have to get any dental work done, I need to have antiobiotics so I don't get an infection.

What kind of infection would I get, anyhow? I'm taking my stress echo tomorrow and MRI next week. I'm just wondering now, how many things can I possibly have wrong with my heart?? :confused: