Desperate for advice

[boulderjohn]

@Hippocampus01 unfortunately no one on this forum is going to be able to answer that question for you. Your best bet is to contact DAN
DAN Europe - Contacts

Actually, you can do pretty well on this forum. We have a number of active diving physicians participating, including several on the ScubaBoard staff. For example, @Dr. Doug Ebersole is a well known cardiologist and technical diving instructor. He (and others) can give you advice from afar at least as credible as the advice you can get from afar from DAN.

 

[tbone1004]

Actually, you can do pretty well on this forum. We have a number of active diving physicians participating, including several on the ScubaBoard staff. For example, @Dr. Doug Ebersole is a well known cardiologist and technical diving instructor. He (and others) can give you advice from afar at least as credible as the advice you can get from afar from DAN.

I was actually going to suggest contacting Dr. Doug, but he's just getting back from the Bahamas right now cave diving with Brian and Mike from KISS *super jealous....

 

[scubadada]

PVCs can be innocuous to the cause for sudden death. I'm sure your cardiologist inquired as to whether you have ever had symptoms, I would assume not, as you were unaware of them. What were the findings on the holter monitoring that prompted your cardiologist to recommend ablation?

I am not a cardiologist and do not play one on SB. Being under the care of a competent cardiologist is the most important thing. This is not only a diving related question, though having a significant complication while underwater may have more serious implications.

Best of luck and good diving

 

[Bowers]

though i dont have the answers, as a medic ive seen lots of otherwise healthy individuals show pvcs that they didnt have when they were younger. I too am curious about your underlying rhythm. oblations are generally used to stop freelance cells from generating a faster rhythm, ive never heard of it being used for a rhythm that is too slow... do you have A-fib or something other than sinus? and how slow?

 

[Hippocampus01]

Thank you for the last few supportive posts, I know that whenever people on this forum are able to help they are kind enough to do so, and it is possibly the greatest source of knowledge in everything scuba in the world.

Ido not have heart disease nor any other problem with my heart, just these PVCs which the cardio says originate in the right ventricle. He says that it is frequent enough to require treatment, not because it causing problems for me now but could cause cardiomyopathy in time. He would normally treat it with beta blockers or other drugs, but as my resting heart rate can be as low as 30 (always has been), he doesn’t think it wise to use these drugs which slow the heart rate!

 

[uncfnp]

Isolated, asymptotic PVC’s are rarely a concern but it sounds like there is more going on in your case since a cardiologist is recommending surgical ablation.

This is a pretty good patient handout...

Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) - Symptoms and causes

Hopefully the specialists will be along shortly but in general the risk is two fold. Short term, groupings (or runs) of PVC’s is termed ventricular tachycardia and can cause anything from feeling your heart race or pound (palpitations), dizziness, shorth of breath, to sudden death. The risk is greater if you have frequent PVC’s or underlying heart disease. Long term risk is, as you said, cardiomyopathy.

 

[Bowers]

ok that makes sense. by no means should you base your decision off my imput, (and i know very little about you) but if you are asymptomatic and the ovblation is "because it may cause problems later", then you may want to do it after your trips... recovery after any heart proceedures should be with as little stress as possible. but as mentioned above, if it is frequent enough, dont let it get to a problematic point just because of diving.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

I can't add much to what uncfnp said. Carolina does beat Duke to the punch every once in a while

Isolated PVCs are common in athletic individuals, but as she said, if your physician advised ablation, chances are he or she was concerned for another etiology. Ablations are *usually* relatively benign procedures (your physician should talk to you about the risks), but returning to diving is going to depend on how well the ablation worked. It's not a matter of just waiting long enough to recover from the procedure itself. There will be follow-up testing that you'll need to do, and your physician will have to be satisfied that the procedure was effective before you can be cleared for full activity.

This is not, repeat NOT a prescription for any medication for any individual, but on a personal note, I had frequent benign PVCs for years until I started taking coenzyme Q10 100 mg per day. They disappeared overnight and don't come back unless I stop the medication. It may be worth at least talking to your physician about.

I'll look forward to anything @Dr. Doug Ebersole has to say about this.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[Hippocampus01]

DDM, you have given me a life line. I will ask the cardio ASAP. I think I have had this problem for a good few years without knowing it, and now age is worsening it: apart from partaking in fairly strenuous exercise I do not tick any boxes on the “causes” list. I do not expect any doctor on this site to tell me what I should do, just perhaps what they would do in my situation with two major trips this autumn. My cardio says I should not dive deep because of the pressure, not an unusual opinion from an otherwise decent dr. who just does not understand the issues with scuba and wants to cover his derrière. My feeling is that as I am otherwise as fit as I can be for my age, and I would not have known about this problem had I not gone for the check up, that I should leave the ablation until after the two trips and go off and enjoy my diving. Hopefully the Q10 will sort me out as it did you.

 

[Hippocampus01]

DDM, you have given me a life line. I will ask the cardio ASAP. I think I have had this problem for a good few years without knowing it, and now age is worsening it: apart from partaking in fairly strenuous exercise I do not tick any boxes on the “causes” list. I do not expect any doctor on this site to tell me what I should do, just perhaps what they would do in my situation with two major trips this autumn. My cardio says I should not dive deep because of the pressure, not an unusual opinion from an otherwise decent dr. who just does not understand the issues with scuba and wants to cover his derrière. My feeling is that as I am otherwise as fit as I can be for my age, and I would not have known about this problem had I not gone for the check up, that I should leave the ablation until after the two trips and go off and enjoy my diving. Hopefully the Q10 will sort me out as it did you.

DDM, you have given me a life line. I will ask the cardio ASAP. I think I have had this problem for a good few years without knowing it, and now age is worsening it: apart from partaking in fairly strenuous exercise I do not tick any boxes on the “causes” list. I do not expect any doctor on this site to tell me what I should do, just perhaps what they would do in my situation with two major trips this autumn. My cardio says I should not dive deep because of the pressure, not an unusual opinion from an otherwise decent dr. who just does not understand the issues with scuba and wants to cover his derrière. My feeling is that as I am otherwise as fit as I can be for my age, and I would not have known about this problem had I not gone for the check up, that I should leave the ablation until after the two trips and go off and enjoy my diving. Hopefully the Q10 will sort me out as it did you.