Heart Palpitations, anyone had them?

Hey Chaps,

For the first time, I think I’ve been having heart palpitations. Felt like I had a normal heart beat, then every minute or so my heart would feel like it was beating harder for like 5-10 seconds.

I’ve been taking it easy today, just in case. And have a heart rate monitor on to check my data!

I did try to see my doctor, but due to timing I can’t see anyone til Monday.

It doesn’t feel like an A&E matter – but wondering has anyone else has experienced anything similar before?

Cheers

Ricks

Yeah stress…..

Ended up on propanol

It’s very common and a very large percentage of people get them, especially as you get older. I get atria fibrillation (AF) where your heart slips out of rhythm (again very common) and have to had either chemical or electric interventions in n a couple of occasions. Consultant was so blasé about it it out my mind at rest.

Highly unlikely to be anything to worry sbout, but see your gp for peace of mind

Had it from sleep deprivation when our first was 6 weeks old.. ended up in A&E with dizzyness, confusion and palpitations. Just turned out not having enough sleep can make you quite ill…

Cut down on the caffeine.

I do, it occasionally beats like hell for a few secs, also slows down scarily for a few secs sometimes.

I got an ecg via my gp, all was good.

AF is something else I think.

Yes I had them quite a bit when I had anxiety. Still get them sometimes, especially after consuming caffeine.

yeah i used to get that.

scans – fine.
blood tests – fine.
other tests – fine.
diet – turned out i had developed some kind of cheese intolerance! Gutted! Gave up cheese and it went away.

Still, at least I didn’t have to lie awake at night convinced my heart was ****, so that was a bit of a silver lining 😉

EDIT – also used to get the ‘feeling like it stopped’ thing – that was even scarier

Yep, Palpitations since August last year.

Pretty much normal and most likely nothing to worry about, deffo not one for A+E unless you have pain, dizziness, feel weird or it gets worse when you exercise.

My random learnings from going through the diagnostic process are:

Firstly drink plenty of water, the Nurses told me Hydration is often the culprit. Try quitting alcohol/caffeine see if anything changes. Lack of sleep can cause it too. Good to identify if there’s a trigger for it.

If it’s irregular your doc will want to know the rhythm. Your fitness watch measures rate, not individual beats so it won’t tell you if your heart is irregular. Instead just take you own pulse manually, see if it feels regular. If it’s not regular try to note the rhythm. Maybe video your self tapping out the beats on a table or somesuch. If you really want to go the whole hog buy yourself an AliveCor for £100 which will allow you to present the doc with an ECG which seems to be enough for him to decide if you need to see specialist or not. I bought the Alive cor because the palps weren’t happening often enough for the AliveCor the GP was lending me to pick it up. Sounds like it may be happening often enough to you for borrowed kit to pick it up. Roughly where are you located?

In my case I was diagnosed with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Essentially my HR goes irregular during the night about once a month for a couple of hours and then sorts itself out. (Except since I’ve seen the specialist and been told it’s not anything structural wrong with my heart I’ve stopped worrying about it and it’s stopped happening. It seems nothing causes palpitations like worrying about palpitations. 🙂 ) In my case I don’t need any treatment or drugs.

So in summary from my experience in no particular order:

1) Hydrate, for the time being don’t drink alcohol, quit Caffine. Get Sleep; try to identify a trigger.
2) Try to “record” the rhythm for the Doc, even if it’s just video of your SO tapping the beats on a table as they take your pulse.
3) See GP.

I get the feeling palpitations without any other symptoms rarely indicate a medical problem and where they do (as in my case) it’s usually something utterly trivial.

Alivecor if you’re feeling flush:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kardia-Mobile-AliveCor-Black-0-6oz/dp/B01A4W8AUK/ref=sr_1_1?m=A3CHKKV5Z0PAQD&qid=1554584044&s=merchant-items&sr=1-1

PS: No medical person has told me this, but IIRC milk contains a load of good electrolytes, necking milk may help if you have an electrolyte imbalance.

Since I was a kid.

Don’t get them so much these days. If I stop suddenly after big exertion I can get them , once or twice a year.

Had loads of tests. Doctors never seem to bothered by them. Dad is on beta-blockers for them too.

I can usually get rid of them by kneeling down and taking deep breaths.

Can be scary but not died yet.

Thanks everyone, feel a lot less stressed about it, which will obviously make the Palpitations better!

In terms of triggers… Could easily be anything you guys have mentioned.

– I quit work last week
– I’ve switched to pretty strong coffee beans, and the machine lost its 30ml setting, so wife ended up giving me a lot of espresso yesterday
– Not been getting enough sleep
– Diet has been poor this last week
– Been on ibuprofen for about 4 weeks from a mangled hand, after a crash (off for a good few days now)

All of them I can sort, and have been addressing.

Stress and poor diet poor sleep can lead to magnesium deficiency which you could read up about how that relates to palpitations.

might just be ectopic beats, feels like a little burst of heartbeats but is actually beats firing early and then it feels like the others are catching up in a flurry, can last a good ten seconds. I get them often, used to get them a LOT when I was living off coffee and not enough sleep and went to the doc, got sent to a and e, they wired me up for about two minutes but of course they didn’t occur during that time so they sent me on my way.

triggers for me are mostly caffeine, especially when lacking sleep and/or stressed. cut down on the coffee!

like the guy above I can also trigger them by taking deep breaths, partly why I don’t enduuuuuuro any more

The ectopic beat thing describes what I experience. Got really bad for a while a couple fo years ago (e.g. sitting at home in the evening, suddenly bursts of effort running up stairs)

Looked at some risk factors and turns out that drinking 15 coffees a day is not terribly smart. Whodda thunk? 🤦‍♂️

As above, caffeine, booze, lack of sleep all contribute.

I get them on an off, have done for about 20 years. Just come off 2 weeks of up to 5,000 ectopic beats a day. Started after a ‘quiet’ couple of years and stopped about three days ago just as suddenly as they started. Unpleasant, but symptomless. Had echo, MRI countless ECG, all normal.

Interesting that you mention ibuprofen. There is some evidence of increase risk of AF any other rhythm disturbances for some people with use of it: https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d3450

In my late teens, early twenties, I use to take a lot of ibuprofen for a bad back. No idea if that is anything to do with my ticker but I don’t take ibuprofen anymore.

Don’t get them so much these days. If I stop suddenly after big exertion I can get them , once or twice a year.

rone – I had this, it’s a tachycardia – mine was superventricular (upper chambers), and was resolved with a RF ablation procedure (in and out of hospital the same day)… not had it since.