schatzki ring pvc s can anybody out there provide me with any advice concerning the following two health problems first i was recently diagnosed using a ugi series as having a schatzki ring and small sliding hiatal hernia as i understand it the hernia is a relatively minor problem though i do occasionally have some nasty heartburn that is probably related to it the schatzki ring on the other hand is causing swallowing difficulty in particular if i m not careful about eating slowly and thoroughly chewing food food occasionally gets stuck before reaching my stomach this results in a period of painful spasms as the food attempts to pass the obstruction fortunately the food has always managed to pass but this is annoying and causes frequent discomfort my doctor wants to dilate the ring using the following procedure use an endoscope to examine the esophagus and stomach for any inflammation then cut through the ring and dilate it by passing some kind of balloon or something thru the esophagous i would like to know if anyone out there has had this or a similar procedure done if so was it painful successful etc also can anyone comment on safety advisability and success rate of this procedure has it become a common procedure i am kind of leery of having such an invasive sounding procedure performed for a currently non threatening condition such as this especially considering the possible side effects bleeding perforation reaction to anesthesia the second issue for the past years i have had a large number of extra heartbeats in particular during the past month or so there has been a dramatic increase a holter monitor recently showed pvc s in hrs along with a few pac s many days there are far more than this however five to ten per hour all of them were isolated and the cardiologist indicated that such a number was normal it certainly doesn t feel normal in the past there have also been a couple of episodes of extended runs of these beats one of which lasted long enough to cause severe light headedness i am relatively young ish thin and in good health recent bloodtests were all normal and do not smoke use drugs or caffeine etc i m willing to accept the extra beats as normal but don t want to ignore them if they might be some kind of warning symptom the number of pvc s seems to increase throughout the day and with exercise or something as simple as climbing some stairs also if i get up after sitting or lying down for a while i tend to get a couple of extra beats could they possibly be related to the esophagous problems both seemed to develop at about the same time thanks for any help advice
