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does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
#1
does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
Just curious if anyone has any information regarding afib or pvcs (premature ventricular contractions) and how it affects sleep apnea, does controling afib or pvcs help reduce sleep apnea, I am aware that sleep apnea can cause afib and pvcs but are there any stats that show that a person taking meds to control afib or pvcs will indirectly or directly help reduce sleep apnea?? a dog chasing his tail like scenario
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#2
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
PVC's first line treatment is a bet-blocker, Bilol is a preference here. It does not depress respiration ro respiratory sense. There should be not major effect on your AHI in either direction, but you may see more CAs in the mix. However these are not real CAs, but slowed respiration cycles that are a response to various factors, and are read as CAs by the machine. They are harmless and do not have an effect on sO2sats.
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#3
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
(10-06-2015, 06:15 AM)DocWils Wrote: PVC's first line treatment is a bet-blocker, Bilol is a preference here. It does not depress respiration ro respiratory sense. There should be not major effect on your AHI in either direction, but you may see more CAs in the mix. However these are not real CAs, but slowed respiration cycles that are a response to various factors, and are read as CAs by the machine. They are harmless and do not have an effect on sO2sats.

Not sure I understood your answer. I have seen an EP specialist who deals strictly with afib and pvcs. premature ventricular contractions can reduce the amout of blood flow to the lungs and thus affect breathing. He in fact has seen this is some patients. I am on bilol and its not working for me. I have been on the cpap machine now for 5 months and will be re-testing in two weeks to see if my PVCs have come down since on the machine.
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#4
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
Sleep apnea isn't a lung thing. It is a throat thing. PVCs which thicken the blood and lower the blood's O2 saturation rate (if that is what happens) wouldn't bother sleep apnea at all EXCEPT make recovering from a sleep apnea event harder. What is going on is two events, both causing low blood oxygen. So combined, not a good thing.

However, treating your sleep apnea will help because it removes one of the causes.

Will treating sleep apnea decrease PVCs? Perhaps. If the PVCs are not due to damage to the heart but more along the lines of stress the heart is experiencing, yes, it may. If the PVCs are caused from an unknown reason or some other reason, no, CPAP treatment won't make much of a difference.

After starting the CPAP, my blood pressure dropped and the fast, loud heartrate upon waking stopped (mostly). My PVCs, however, continued along their merry way and got worse later after a fun time with my thyroid medication. They've not settled down since.
PaulaO

Take a deep breath and count to zen.




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#5
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
Quote:Will treating sleep apnea decrease PVCs? Perhaps.

Anecdotally it seems treating apnea can have a beneficial effect on PVCs. In my own case it stopped them completely (as predicted by my cardiologist).
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#6
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
(10-14-2015, 11:51 PM)DeepBreathing Wrote:
Quote:Will treating sleep apnea decrease PVCs? Perhaps.

Anecdotally it seems treating apnea can have a beneficial effect on PVCs. In my own case it stopped them completely (as predicted by my cardiologist).


In my case, the opposite - I never had PVC (actually VES) before I took up CPAP, but I doubt there is a causal relationship there. More likely a combination of age and the stress of my job and a sort of genetically built in heart problem in my family.
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#7
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
(10-14-2015, 08:53 PM)ckingzzzs Wrote: Not sure I understood your answer. I have seen an EP specialist who deals strictly with afib and pvcs. premature ventricular contractions can reduce the amout of blood flow to the lungs and thus affect breathing. He in fact has seen this is some patients. I am on bilol and its not working for me. I have been on the cpap machine now for 5 months and will be re-testing in two weeks to see if my PVCs have come down since on the machine.

Sorry if that was bit too medicalese for you - it was a long way of saying no, taking heart meds will have no effect on your SA one way or the other as it does not address anything to do with that problem. Also, there is no strong direct relationship between SA and PVC caused decreased blood flow to the lungs or concomitant breathing in that regard. SA is not a lung triggered syndrome, but higher up, in the throat or the brain (for CSA or CA). As such, reducing PVCs via medication will not have any effect on SA as such, although reducing SA can have a positive effect on PVC events by reducing a stressor for the heart that may trigger PVC events. But there are many other causes for PVC/afib, so you may not see any bettering of your case despite having lowered your AHI (number of apnoea events).

If bilol is driving your heart rate below 60 bpm, it may actually support PVC events rather than suppress them and a slow discontinuation of the medication may actually be enough to rid you of the events, as sometimes people prone to PVCs experience greater or more consistent number of events when in Bradycardia.

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#8
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
It comes down to the root cause of the heart condition. If the condition is being caused or aggravated by sleep apnea, then treating the SA will decrease and perhaps even cure the condition. PVCs can be hard to track down the cause and unless they are causing problems, it is rare a doc will track down the reason behind the PVCs.

For me, I took low dose aspirin for a while until we got the thyroid med straightened out then continued it for a while after. The PVCs are tolerable as long as I avoid certain caffeine or too much caffeine. Since they are not causing any other problems (other than when they happen) and my doc thinks it is my punishment for drinking caffeine (an argument we love to have), we've decided to not pursue it further. I'm comfortable with that. Should they misbehave during non-caffeine related events, then we will act.
PaulaO

Take a deep breath and count to zen.




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#9
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
PVCs are often idiopathic in nature, Paula, so it is very difficult to find a smoking gun in many cases where there is no other cardiac disease present. In many cases, while uncomfortable, they are also benign and do not significantly impact on life expectancy or health, so we have discovered over many, many years of watching them. However, where other cardiac diseases are present, PVCs are considered a bellwether and a call to action.

When I went to med school, PVCs in healthy hearts were considered something that comes and goes and mostly got a shrug, because in such cases, finding an underlying cause was near impossible and was probably a lifestyle thing - 10 million years on and we still feel pretty much the same way, only we look a bit wider in our considerations - does the patient suffer from apnoea? Does the patient have unusual stressors? Thyroid problems? These might not have been so closely looked at by a GP back in the day, but are now. Electrical problems are ruled out quickly, because the same test to diagnose the PVC is the test to see how the electrical function of the heart is, but now maybe we might do a Holter device 24 monitor to see if there is a pattern. And even if there is, it may not indicate anything, and in most cases, as I said, they come and they go, barring a real illness. Moreover, in many cases, PVCs don't present when examined, because, as I said, they come and go, and there is also a white coat effect. I had PVCs for a year or more before I could get a clear picture, because everytime I went to my GP, i didn't present, only for it to start up again an hour later. I decided to grab an old EKG machine that was being retired and stick it in the corner of my office, and if I started to present, I hooked myself up to get a reading - then I could bring that to my GP to get an agreement. So, not always so easy - sometimes people present for a consistent amount of time to get a diagnosis, and they are the luckier ones. And that is the wonderful world of the Pre-Ventricular Contraction.
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#10
RE: does anyone have info on how AFIB or PVCs affect readings
I would think that you should concentrate on the heart issues ie afib &/or pvc's first and foremost. If you're having enough pvc's that are affecting other systems then you're looking at going into VT (ventricular tachycardia) anyway, then sleep apnea is the least of your problems.

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