I had my first noticeable arrhythmias about 18 years ago. One quiet night I had sat down after work with a beer in hand barely had a sip when I noticed what felt like a hiccup. I knew it wasn’t really a hiccup, but it still felt like one. A few minutes later I felt another one. And another. They were my heart skipping a beat, and that scared me. So after some typical male hesitation I headed for the Emergency Room (which was about 2 blocks away). They didn’t actually record anything of interest on an ECG, but I now know that these were PVCs or PACs (without an ECG it’s hard to tell which). Either way they were palpitations.

In that same general time frame, give or take a year, I remember playing racquetball with my dad and brother when I felt my heart racing, light-headed and no pulse. Very similar to what I feel now when I have supraventricular tachycardia (SVTs).

After those two incidents I didn’t really feel anything for many years. I do remember occasionally feeling the palpitations, but never more than a few here or there.

Fast forward to maybe 2006 (probably earlier). Occasionally when I would wake up in the morning I would notice the palpitations. Usually they would go away quickly and not be an issue. Then I had them occur for a couple days in a row. So I decided one morning (August 2006) that I should go by the doctor’s office and run it past him. They took a chest X-Ray and an ECG. The ECG did reveal a PVC/PAC. So that was the diagnosis. During that day I continued to have the palpitations. All day long. Several per minute. At about 4:30pm I decided that I needed to make sure these were benign. So I called the Doctor’s office to find that he wasn’t available. So after some thought I decided to play it safe and went to the emergency room. They hooked me up to the ECG and found some PVCs. They explained that these were truly benign and that I should not worry about them, but follow up with my doctor.

So PVCs/PACs are benign. I’m good with that. After this day I did on occasion have more of these, but they rarely lasted more than a few hours and I really don’t have an issue with them now that I knew they are benign… That is until July 3rd 2007.

I’ll post more later… this is where it gets more interesting.