Hey Reddit!,
I’ve always had these “weird” feeling heartbeats that would often take my breathe away. I’ve been to doctors and cardiologists and they never happen (of course) when they do tests like EKGs and doctors always say I’m perfectly fine (even did a echocardiogram).
I finally was feeling them and I think I was able to capture it on my Apple Watch.
Is this what a PVC looks like? Again feel they uncomfortable and makes me short of breath when it happens.
I will definitely be showing it to my doctor as well.
You must log in or register to comment.
Make an appointment with a doc for checking the premature heart beat. Hope the best for you.
That’s crazy never seen that
Just curious how you found this on your Apple Watch? Did it automatically alert you?
It’s probably an ectopic beat. Caught mine, too. I have an ILR above my heart to catch arrhythmias and when I had a “missed” beat I took an ECG on the watch, and phoned the cardiac nurse the next day. She confirmed the device had recorded it and that it was an ectopic/extra beat.
I was so scared when I had stress and pvc… it’s am unsettling feeling
Yes, definitely! Especially so when you have no idea what’s causing it!
I get one to five on most days and that’s normal. Everyday is still harmless, it’s how many a day that’s the issue. You need thousands a day for it yo be an issue.
Indeed. But it’s still not normal for us to be aware of them. There may be an underlying issue somewhere.
It’s possible, but very unlikely. If I’m monitoring my (admittedly very ill patients) I don’t think much of isolated PVCs until I start to get more than 5-10 per minute. Even then, they aren’t much to get excited about until they get strung together, are associated with hemodynamic issues, or start increasing (ie, my patient has 2-3/minute and a couple hours later 10/minute).
I would treat them as a general sign of cardiac irritability, but if you’re having a hard time catching them on your watch they’re not frequent enough to be terribly concerning unless you’re feeling symptoms with them like dizziness/lightheadedness.
Just FYI - a PVC is a type of ectopic beat.
Just warning you to not get your hopes up. Occasional single PVCs are not at all uncommon and most docs won’t work them up. If you are symptomatic, which you say you are, stress that. Feeling palpitations can be annoying, but in general, not harmful. More frequent PVCs that are strung together could be more of an issue. Some people have trigeminy or bigeminy etc which are PVCs at regular intervals of every 3 or 2 beats…and some have V Tach–basically all PVCs. Some have symptomatic and some asymptomatic, but don’t want to be in V Tach and that requires medication and or cardioversion. Broad strokes here, not medical advice.
You’ve been to cardiologists, per your post, and I assume you’ve been cleared. They can prescribe something called a ZioPatch which does a 2 week monitoring and you can press the event button if you feel any symptoms, so that they can correlate those to the rhythm at that moment. Check with insurance. Mine was covered.
I would advise you ask your question in r/medicaladvice for other opinions.
I get this, isn’t that normal? 😟 every now and then I feel a change in my heart beat and slight discomfort, and usually causes me to take a deep breath almost like an automatic response
Not “normal” but not alarmingly abnormal. “Normal” is you don’t notice your heart pumping - it just chugs along doing its thing in the background. But doesn’t seem to be much of an issue if it’s irregularly (IANAD)
I get this also! Managed to take a screenshot like yours which is identical. I often get a sensation, feeling when they happen. No pain or breathlessness. They seem to be worse after caffeine or alcohol. Find them annoying but so far I’ve not managed to stop them from happening!
I got the exact same thing. First time happened a few months ago.
The doctors told me it was nothing to worry about, they made me take a blood test and an electrocardiogram and it was normal (obviously because the palpitations are not happening every time but whatever). They did not think a Holter was justified in my case.
They told me it was probably because of a lack of sleep and stress. Even though my sleep and stress is not worse than usual, I don’t know what triggered that now my body reacts to stress and lack of sleep with palpitations.
First things first, never take medical advice from anyone on socials regardless of who or what they claim they are. With that said, if you are having symptoms then get seen by an actual licensed healthcare professional.
What you really need is to be put on a 36-48h ECG to get the full picture not a 2 min ECG.
Yep I’ve done those before but it never caught it. My PVCs come in episodes. Already did a holter
*breath
I get these occasionally too. In my case, they are caused by a sensitivity to corn. (Starch & syrup especially)
What else is interesting here is that the ‘normal’ beats….the QRS complexes also appear slightly atypical. They have what looks like an ‘epsilon wave’. This is found in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD). This is by no means diagnostic but purely an observation.
Would be cautious about identifying features such as epsilon waves on an Apple Watch tracing. Epsilon waves are usually identified in the anterior precordial leads because of delay across the RV, which is anterior. The Watch records a modified lead I tracing (one arm to the other), which is not the best lead to see those features.
However, kudos to the OP for catching something evanescant. Between the randomness of some PVCs and the lag in recording as the Apple Watch filters and locks on the rhythm, I’m impressed! (Assuming that recording correlated with what they have been feeling.) PVCs can be weird. Some folks have thousands per hour and never feel a thing. Others have one an hour and feel every single one.
Yeah I’ve so many 12-lead EKGs and the doctors say it’s fine but slightly abnormal but it is common in young athletic men. Although they never diagnosed me with what you said
I had exactly journey that feel my heart skipping beat a lot, show my watch ECG to my cardiologist. Yours 100% looks like mine which is PVCs.
My cardiologist ordered echo, stress test, a Holter patch which is really small on your chest. Then beta blockers. I feel brand new cause beta blockers fixed almost all of my PVCs.
As I been told that couple PVCs per hour is harmless and benign, follow up with your cardiologist to rule out any physical changes on your heart then you can forget about and no longer worry about it.
Yes, it’s normal.