Spent the Night in the ER

First off, I am fine and so is baby.
Saturday, I took my inhaler and also had some caffeine. About an hour later, my heart started palpitating. To me, it felt like it was skipping beats. That went on for about 1.5 hrs. It was making me light-headed, but I chalked it up to the albuterol and caffeine and didn’t tell anyone what was going on. It eventually stopped.

Ty and I went to the fair and while I was eating (at about 8pm), they started in again and were constant. This time it scared me. I told Ty about it and we decided to call my OB since it had been so long since I’d had anything that would have affected me that way.

She sent me to Labor & Delivery where they monitored baby (but not me) Baby looked great, so the nurse asked if I wanted to go down to ER and have them monitor me there since they couldn’t do anything like that for me in L&D. I was really hesitant because I just hate going to the hospital, I haven’t been back in an ER since Emmy, and my children were all at my mother-in-law’s, and I hate putting people out. Well, my dr. called the nurse and told her I WAS going down (she knew I wouldn’t want to go). I’m glad I went…

This strange heartbeat has been happening (mostly in pregnancy) for several pregnancies now. I had kept it to myself, but secretly worried about it. However, it was never sustained long enough to make me think I could go in and have anyone really understand what was going on. Yesterday’s episode was a God-send. It forced me to have it checked out and during a time when it was actually happening and the doctors could hear and see exactly what was going on.

Anyway, when they got me in ER, they hooked me up and saw right away what was happening. I was throwing what are called PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions). They are extra beats that do not pump any blood. They are fairly common (not necessarily normal, but common). The reason it was really bothering me was b/c it was happening so often. They did a lot of labs as well.

The conclusion was that several factors were involved in causing this to happen to me. The albuterol, the caffeine, my severe anemia (I’m currently at an 8), and below normal numbers in calcium, magnesium, & potassium. Now, my OB did say that the last three being low in pg are not uncommon and pbly would not cause this type of irregularity, so that was good to know. I also never realized that the rise in my heartrate during pg is normal as well. I always wondered why my heartrate seemed sky-high and no one seemed a bit concerned.

One thing I was not aware of and is the reason I wanted to share this long, drawn-out story is the anemia aspect. Maybe many of you already know that anemia will cause heart irregularities, and if I had really thought about it, that makes a lot of sense. Also, the cardiologist had done a fellowship where he studied pg women and found this condition to be fairly common. Some may never notice it b/c it doesn’t happen often enough, but others will have a sustained time like I did.

So, at this point, we try to get my anemia under control, no more caffeine, and hope I don’t have to use my inhaler anymore. I am still having them off and on, but not with the regularity of Saturday night.

What have I learned from this? It is important to take care of yourself in pregnancy (or any other time for that matter). I may be severely anemic, but my body doesn’t respond the way most people’s would. I feel “normal”, but that doesn’t mean my body is normal. These PVCs are a direct result of something that needs to be fixed. I have more of a sense of urgency about the whole situation now. Time to crack down and take care of myself.