What should I do now?
Call 911
Call 911 for chest pressure, severe trouble breathing, fainting, or severe dizziness with palpitations. Do not drive yourself.
Contact your care team
Contact your care team for new or increasingly frequent palpitations, reduced activity, or troublesome symptoms.
Keep your care plan
Keep your treatment and follow-up plan. Bring questions, readings, and your medication list.
SECTION 6
Your Follow-Up and Next Visit
Your next visit should help answer three questions: What type of premature beats do you have, how often are they happening, and do they need treatment?
What should I bring?
- An updated medication and supplement list.
- A brief description or log of your symptoms.
- Any saved watch EKG recordings.
- Previous EKG, heart monitor, or echocardiogram results if they were performed outside our office.
- Questions about how symptoms affect your sleep, exercise, work, or daily activities.
Questions to ask your care team
- Do I have PACs, PVCs, or both?
- What percentage of my heartbeats are premature beats?
- Is my heart’s pumping function normal?
- Do my recorded symptoms match the premature beats?
- Is observation enough, or would medication or ablation help?
- Should I see an electrophysiologist?
- When should we repeat a monitor or echocardiogram?
When is an EP consultation helpful?
An electrophysiologist—a cardiologist who specializes in the heart’s electrical system—can help when symptoms remain troublesome, medications are ineffective or cause side effects, or frequent PVCs raise concern about weakening the heart.
An EP can also explain whether ablation is appropriate and which approach might be used for your particular source.
Follow-up after treatment
Your care team may repeat a heart monitor to see whether treatment reduced the premature beats.
If PVCs affected your heart’s pumping function, a follow-up echocardiogram can help assess recovery. Feeling better is encouraging, but rhythm recordings and heart imaging provide additional information.
The timing of follow-up depends on your symptoms, test results, and treatment plan.
When should I contact the office sooner?
Contact your care team if palpitations become more frequent or persistent, interfere with daily life, or are accompanied by new fatigue or reduced exercise tolerance. Also report medication side effects.
When should I seek emergency care?
Call 911 for chest pain or pressure, severe shortness of breath, fainting, or severe dizziness that makes you feel you may pass out. Do not drive yourself.
Do not assume new or severe symptoms are simply your usual PACs or PVCs.
Ready to discuss your symptoms?
Make an appointmentTogether, we can choose a plan that addresses your symptoms and protects your heart’s health.
Preparing for your ablation?
Learn about procedure day, recovery, and caring for your groin puncture sites at home.
What to expect on my procedure dateUpdated October 2026. Educational information; your own care plan may differ. Heart illustrations and EKG examples are simplified for teaching.