Treatment
Isolated PVCs with benign characteristics require no treatment. In healthy individuals, PVCs can often be resolved by restoring the balance of magnesium, calcium and potassium within the body. The most effective treatment is the elimination of triggers (particularly the cessation of the use of substances such as caffeine, and certain drugs.)
- Pharmacological agents
- Antiarrhythmics: these agents alter the electrophysiologic mechanisms responsible for PVCs
- Beta blockers
- Calcium channel blockers
- Electrolytes replacement
- Magnesium supplements (e.g. magnesium citrate, orotate, Maalox, etc.)
- Potassium supplements
- Radiofrequency catheter ablation treatment
- Lifestyle modification
- Frequently stressed individuals should consider therapy, or joining a support group.
- Heart attacks can increase the likelihood of having PVCs.
In the setting of existing cardiac disease, however, PVCs must be watched carefully, as they may cause a form of ventricular tachycardia (rapid heartbeat).
Recent studies have shown that those subjects who have an extremely high occurrence of PVCs (several thousand a day) can develop dilated cardiomyopathy. In these cases, if the PVCs are reduced or removed (for example, via ablation therapy) the cardiomyopathy usually regresses.
Read more about this topic: Premature Ventricular Contraction
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“Judge Ginsburg’s selection should be a model—chosen on merit and not ideology, despite some naysaying, with little advance publicity. Her treatment could begin to overturn a terrible precedent: that is, that the most terrifying sentence among the accomplished in America has become, “Honey—the White House is on the phone.””
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)