everyone be careful with sympotamic irregular heartbeats

Hello, Kim and all. I just wanted to make sure that you, Kim, let your cardiologist know if the frequency of times with chest pain, shortness of breath, or dizziness are changing or getting worse. It sounds like you are having a lot of PVCs and may need your medication changed or adjusted. It is okay for anyone to have occasionally “skipped beats” because the heart is designed to be compensate well and continue to work well, however, if someone gets chest pain, shortness of breath, or dizziness, it means that the heart is not compensating well enough at those times. It this lasts a bit or it takes a while to recover, this is not good and needs to be checked out. Symptoms for a second or a few seconds that is quickly recovered from and is not new may not be so worrisome.

With PVCs (premature ventricular beats), the heart empties itself too early and when the next heart beat comes at the scheduled time, it is “late” with respect to the early one and in that extra time, can fill with more blood. This is why this beat feels stronger and people’s chest feel like it is pounding.

If one has a really fast heart beat (tachycardia), the heart cannot fill well and does not pump as much blood as usual. This can lead to dizziness or low blood pressure, and can cause fainting or heart insufficiency because the heart might not be able to work well enough. Children are great to compensate for need for more blood flow (like with activities) with an increase in heart rate, because their hearts are small and cannot increase the amount of blood as much. Adults can too, but adults more often use the amount of blood pumped per heart beat as a way to give more blood than the rate. Adults are sensitive to changes in rate and typically do not do well with really fast rates.

On the other thread, there is discussion about heart vessel clogging as well as about rate issues. These are two different things, although linked. Heart vessel clogging causing heart attacks regards the blood going to the heart to give it oxygen. It the heart is beating faster or harder, it needs more oxygen, but people can have heart failure without having significant heart vessel blockages. If the rate is too fast, the heart fails to keep up to supply blood and oxygen to the body well enough. So one is with respect to oxygen to the heart so that it can work okay and the other is the heart working okay to give enough ozygen to the body. Both regard the heart, but the reason for “failure” is different. I hope this is understandable.

The autonomic system has as part of it to help regulate heart rate and if the nerves to the heart are affected by GBS/CIDP, the heart rate can be off.

I just wanted to make sure that no one thinks it is okay to have bad, persistent or progressive chest pain or dizziness or shortness of breath. If something is significant that you have to sit or lie down to keep from passing out, it needs attention. Please!
WithHope for a cure of these diseases.