[DaniRae]

Originally Posted by bypeep

Susie,

Which is worse? The crippling effect of not knowing, or the fear of finding out what's really going on?

I'm obviously not a medical professional, but I have read through your posts thoroughly since I joined the site a while back. Your major complaint seems to be PAC's. Going out on a limb here... you mention one of the reasons for cancelling your original monitor is because you worried they would find "A-fib or something worse." In your case, A-fib would most likely be the worse thing they could find. Anything is possible, but from what I've read, they are only seeing premature beats originating in your atria. This should be such a reassurance to you. I know it's what I hoped for when I was going through testing. Yes, the sensations the PAC's cause are very uncomfortable and scary, but a PAC will not hurt you. Imagine the reassurance you will receive when this monitoring session is complete and they find out that PAC's are your only issue.

Here's a suggestion - your latest worry is over the resting size of your left ventricle. Know that echo's aren't the "gold standard" in estimating the size and function of your heart. If this is truly plaguing you, perhaps request a cardiac MRI. This will give the best images of your heart and determine the real size of that ventricle. It's entirely possible that the echo is off slightly on its measurements and the MRI could prove to you that this chamber is of normal size.

Our bodies are all very different. I'd be more worried if that ventricle were enlarged or thickened than being 2mm smaller during one phase of the cardiac cycle than the average person's.

As far as your question about the transmissions...

You will transmit your data to a call center. They will analyze the strips it produces. If they see something that is alarming, they will most likely fax over the results to your Cardiologist. There are very few things that would cause them to send you to the ER and each of those things would (probably) be very apparent to you if they were going on. They don't even worry about NSVT (usually) on these things. My 9-beat run got a "it looks like you had a little bit of a run" response from my technician, but she didn't seem like it was dire. She just told me that she'd be faxing my event to my cardio asap and he might be calling. He didn't.

Yes, you're 25 minutes from the nearest hospital, but you have never had to rush there before right? So nothing has really changed. If they tell you to head to the ER it would be no different if you were having stomach pains and told yourself to go.

I've read a lot of stories on here, but the only person I recall getting a "head to the ER" response was Lisa. Remember her? Well all her tests showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that her heart was abnormal. Yours really haven't.

You will be fine. This will be a positive experience. You will get the answers you need and feel better in the long run.

Yes, we are all hypersensitive to our hearts. Maybe that's the real disease they need to treat, lol. I told my electrophysiologist that the only reason I can't ignore them is because they are so jolting. I told him that I don't sit there and obsess about my heart until it knocks the wind out of me and makes me take notice. I suggested that he research ways to deaden the awareness and then we'd all be happy. I guess the only way we can do this now is with some biofeedback or something. I don't know.

But what I do know is that you will get through this. What I'm hoping is that you can get through this and take with it a little peace of mind.

Wow, great post, and I couldn't agree more