So I get PVC beats that worsen with exertion. I’m seeing a specialist but would like to continue doing some easy aerobic exercise. When I wear my chest wahoo monitor, I sometimes get real high readings that don’t appear to be the typical bad data one gets at the start of a workout.
But when I stop and take my HR manually, it seems to be somewhat normal, like say 130 but the reading is like 165. I do notice the pattern is not steady, it will beat normally but then go on a run for a few beats. Over time, it seems to settle in ok and drop to wear I’d expect it to be.
It there a better way to monitor heart rate in my situation? Is the wrist based better? I feel like it takes the quick run of beats and decides that is my HR. On a related note, it’s hard to even guess at a max HR when the heart is beating all out of sync the faster it goes, at some point the “max” is kind of pointless. My hope is an electrical specialist can get this set right.
I had a similar problem but pvc’s did not show on my Wahoo tickr or on a wrist based hrm-I have a Suunto 9. They only showed on ekg at doc’s office. Had the ablation done and that problem was solved but I did have some lousy complications from the ablation surgery at the entrance site. Good luck.
I wanted to ask if that procedure ended up fixing your issues long-term? I don’t really understand if I am doing some kind of damage to my heart when I go hard so I’m kind of backing off of it for a while until I get more guidance from a specialist
The Doc who did my ablation is a long time marathoner himself and understood my mindset. In my case the PVC’s were a Covid souvenir and were present over 20% of my day. The frequency of them occurring was the single biggest factor in my decision to have the surgery. The surgery was successful in eliminating the PVCs. That is no guarantee that I won’t develop others but I’ll take it for now. I did have a very lousy experience with the team trying to close me up at the entrance exit site, a low percentage complication but it happened none the less. Fast forward 8 months since the ablation and this past weekend I rode the Tour of the Catskills- set the highest hr beats per minute for the 5sec, 5 min, 10 minute and 20 minute intervals that I have done in years. I thought I felt some irregularity on the subsequent days but that seems settled and could be explained by a host of variables-exertion, caffeine, dehydration… The surgery is normally straight forward but in my case it certainly was not- when in doubt get a few more opinions!
Wow that’s great news for you, good to hear. I think mine are a bit atypical because they are present at rest but only a little bit but become progressively worse the faster my heart beats to the point where it is taking these three beat runs pretty often during exercise which leads to less blood being pumped despite the heart monitor showing a higher number.
PVC’s at rest are generally not a problem unless a person is experiencing over 20k per day. It sounds more like your issue might be a-fib. You need to have this looked at. If those short bursts of rapid HR last over 3 seconds then you very well may need an ablation. I’ve had one, and they are largely successful these days.
I assumed it was AFib given my status as a middle-aged man who is exercised pretty strenuously for over 30 years but after a pile of testing it seems to be PVCs. I’m going to an electrical specialist in a few weeks who can hopefully get me sorted out