Soothing My PVCs with Lemon Balm Tea

by Jeff

In 2006 I’d had many consecutive months of near-constant PVCs. I would usually start feeling them soon after I woke up and they’d go on all day.  Every day.   Toward the end of the year I was quickly reaching the end of my mental rope with this arrhythmia issue, so I went to my family doctor to look into having some tests done . My doctor agreed and ordered tests and blood work.  Unfortunately, and as is often the case with my heart, once onstage in the setting of Holter monitors and echocardiograms, my heart got stage fright and more or less stopped performing back-flips in my chest, save for a handful of premature beats.

Not surprisingly, after the tests came back my doctor said I was fine, and I enjoyed a few months of very limited PVCs - and I’m still not sure why.

But when the PVCs returned a few months later, I was not content to just live with them. Whether you have 20 or 20,000 PVCs in a day, they can occupy your every thought, cause you to think constantly about your mortality, taking the fun out of even the most pleasurable activities.

I was tired of wondering if today was the day I was going to die.

I didn’t want to go through more rounds of tests - while I was afraid of what the PVCs might mean for my heart and longevity, I was also feeling embarrassed to be considered one of “those patients,” the kind that doctors roll their eyes over when they see their name on the appointment calendar. The kind that think they’ll die from a papercut.

So I decided I was going to try to reduce or even cure my PVCs on my own and started looking online for ways I could eliminate them. I’m not a fan of lifelong medications, so I wanted to find a solution that was natural - or even better, healthy. I scoured the web for strategies of stress relief, home remedies for palpitations and anything else I could think of that might help.

Then I found one possible ally in my fight with PVCs in Melissa officinalis, or lemon balm. It’s a plant that’s a member of the mint family^[1], which is widely used in food products.  Even lemon balm itself is frequently used for it’s lemon flavor in food products like ice cream.^[1]

And then I found an article about it on the University of Maryland Medical Center website where historical medicinal uses (such as for anxiety, insomnia and even herpes) were explained as well as current scientific findings, such as it’s anti-viral properties. ^[2] In that article no side effects or symptoms of toxicity were reported, which eased my mind that much more.

Wikipedia has an in-depth article on the plant and it’s uses.^[3] There were even anecdotes of people drinking lemon balm tea every day for their health, including King Charles V of France (but he died when he was 43 -  though it was back in the 1300’s, so take that with a grain of salt). ^[4]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists the herb as “generally recognized as safe.”^[5]

But the final piece of evidence that made me comfortable enough to jump in and try lemon balm tea to calm my nerves and my heart palpitations wasn’t found on the internet or in a book. It was found at my local big box home improvement store, in the seed display of the garden section. I wondered how harmful it could really be if you can buy the seeds for this herb at your local store.

I tried growing the seeds, and though many online gardening resources claim it’s easy to grow and can take over a garden, the seeds I planted took nearly 15 months to germinate. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have 15 months to wait, so I tried, unsuccessfully, to find lemon balm tea locally.  However, I did find it reasonably priced at Amazon.com,  in tea bags, bulk and seed. (I like to order the tea in larger quantities to save on shipping - pictured below is three of the ten or so boxes I usually buy at a time.)

And in all fairness to you and the medical community, it’s entirely possible that my experience with this herbal tea was the result of a placebo effect, or a combination of the tea and other lifestyle changes I made at roughly the same time. But I keep an excel spreadsheet to track all my arrhythmia issues, and my PVCs were dramatically reduced within a few days of starting a regimen of drinking two cups of lemon balm tea a day. And by dramatic, I mean going from 10,000-20,000 PVC/day down to 1-100 PVC/day.

After a few months I cut back to one cup of tea per day, only drinking more on heavy PVC days. But since 2006, I’ve only had 36 of those heavy days (like I said - I keep a spreadsheet) - after suffering through thousands every day for 8 months straight!

I want to make sure I reiterate that my results might not be what you see for results. My reduction in PVCs could have been from other steps I was taking to remove stress from my life (which is the biggest trigger of PVCs for me), including exercise, diet changes and taking up hobbies to unplug from the daily grind. I’m not a doctor, and you should do your own research before taking any steps regarding your health, including talking to your doctor.

But I’ve been where you are - you’re looking for anything to help you with your palpitations, and when something works it feels like you were just granted a new lease on your life, and you want to shout about it from the rooftops so that others can be helped. For me, lemon balm tea appeared to be (and continues to be) a safe, flavorful addition to my day that helps keep the PVCs at bay.

References

Lemon Balm plant photo courtesy of J.S. Peterson @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database.