I have PVCs and get them when exercising, bending over or when stressed and the cardiologist told me they’re completely benign. How? It’s the one thing keeping you alive.
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First off, i would hope that the bloodflow isn’t being affected too too much if you doctor is saying it’s benign, but I have no clue about arrhythmias. You can also think about it on a cellular level. Cells can survive a little while without constantly moving blood. You can chop a finger off and retach it sometimes. So the cells will need blood somewhat quickly, but they have a bit of time before things start really going south. Some organs will be more sensitive of course. Also, I believe some blood movement, especially in the extremities of the limbs, is aided by muscle contractions to some extent (for example, if you lose circulation in an area, and you purposely move your muscles around, it will move the blood more quickly and you can feel it tingling more quickly than if you choose not to contract the muscles). So the arrythmia would have to prevent blood flow quite substantially before it would slow down blood flow long enough to start actually killing cells. Even if your heart totally stops functioning, you won’t die instantly. Cells have some level of resiliency to this kind of thing, they can tolerate changes to all sorts of variables. I have no idea how much a benign arrythmia would affect blood flow, but maybe someone knows about this. Cells need oxygen to produce ATP to power cellular activities, but they store a certain amount of ATP up inside the cell so they have kinda a “reserve” they can use to some extent I believe. Also, if your blood stops moving, the excess CO2 your cells produce will start building up in the bloodstream and make your blood more acidic (the acidity buildup is the most important reason why it’s hard to hold your breath and you will be forced to breath eventually, it’s the not the lack of oxygen that triggers the forced breathing – the co2 buildup and blood acidity is what triggers feelings of ‘not enough air’, not lack of oxygen, which is a common misconception). This blood acidity increase from the lack of bloodflow will start causing problems with cellular processes, but this process of rising acidity takes place over time, and cells can tolerate small variations in pH, or larger variations in pH for a short period of time. Eventually, if the cells don’t receive oxygen and the co2 is not being recycled away, they will start to die.
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