extra heartbeats(kind of arrythmia)

[Angelo]

Hello! Please, I want to address you all, and in particular those with experience in applied medicine for freediving, I mean physicians. Well, I have one important question: a year ago I started to feel extraheartbeats suddenly when I was doing soft dinamic apnea training in the pool, and even at home or in my bed. After that I became very worried and I visited the cardiologist, I had some tests like x- ray, 24h-Holter and a complete blood test, all about my heart. The diagnosis was very positive: ventricle extrasistole (EV in spanish, I think VE in english: normal beats and suddenly an extrabeat follow by a short pause) and he said I was too nervous at that time and not worried at all about that, even when I told him I do freediving in a very easy and safe level (he is not a expert about diving). The thing is that now I feel much better, I do not have such a huge stress like I had a year ago but the fact is that still I can notice this extrabeats many times in a day during a few days, later it disappears for a week…and comes again..and so on. One thing is I haven’t slept very well for some months, very active when I go to sleep… and even after endurance swimming (3 times per week) it comes again.
Regarding to the heartbeats, I do not know what is the reason, due to freediving….due to prolonged stressful situations? I am a very active person, good athlete in many sports, I’ve been competing in cross-country sking for a few years, good shape……..you know, everything seems to be fine. Please, let me know what could happen here, what are the possible reasons? Very thanks before hand.

Ángel.

 

[samdive]

Hi Angelo
I have had exactly the same problem very recently and have also just finished with cardiologists etc.

My extra beats were present for about a month, all the time for a few days at a time and woke me up in the night quite often. Now they seem to have gone completely. My doctors decision was that I had been training quite hard even when I was sick earlier in the year with a virus and that this had damaged the heart a bit temporarily - but all the scans and tests showed that it was ok now. He told me not to dive if they came back and to wait one month before diving after they stopped. He also said that they might come back if I got ill again but the main thing, and I think this is what you might be experiencing - he said that these kind of beats are very very common in normal life and happen to everyone several, sometimes many times a day. The fact is though, that if you have been through some time where they are worse than that, when you feel the "normal" extra beats you are more likely to worry about them, and worrying makes them worse!!

So get checked out properly, esp before free or scuba diving but you probably do not have much to worry about.

One other thing I have done is to start taking potassium and magnesium supplements that may have also helped.

Moral of the story is - if you are sick, stay at home with a good book, do not go to the gym and drive your heart crazy!

sam

 

[Angelo]

Hello Sam! First of all, thank you very much for your interest. I could not answered you before but now I do it. I take good note of this you tell me and I will try to be also more relaxed. Again I visited the doctor and he told me no worry about it, quite common in most of the population (extra beats), exactily what you said, now I feel much better. Thanks again!
Angelo