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Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
fast heartbeats
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fast heartbeats
by yuna, Aug 02, 2000 12:00AM
Could you please tell me if it any cause for concern when your heart beats faster and more forcefully for a few seconds?
Usually once per week (sometimes more), my heart will start beating faster and harder when I am doing nothing but sitting or laying.
It feels like it starts doing it with a small skip and then bang, bang, bang, etc., for maybe 30 - 40 beats. It also sometimes does really hard bangs for about 8 beats and once again stops, and other times it just flutters (once again only for a few seconds). I feel tingley hands and really scared when this happens. It stops on its own with a big bang. This is really causing me great anxiety.
I have been diagnosed with PVC's, PAC's and short runs of PVC's, but the doctor says it is not a reason for concern (which I find hard to believe), because structurally I have a completely normal heart.
I am trying to live with the PVC's etc., but these fast runs of whatever are driving me nuts.
Am I wasting my time worrying about this? Does this sound normal? Do alot of people suffer from similar things? Will PVC's etc. ever go away (or are you stuck with them for life?)
Please note I am a 35 year old healthy female with no other problems other than allergies.
One more question I have is what is the normal heart rate for a five year old? Do children have much faster pulses than adults?
Thanks!
Usually once per week (sometimes more), my heart will start beating faster and harder when I am doing nothing but sitting or laying.
It feels like it starts doing it with a small skip and then bang, bang, bang, etc., for maybe 30 - 40 beats. It also sometimes does really hard bangs for about 8 beats and once again stops, and other times it just flutters (once again only for a few seconds). I feel tingley hands and really scared when this happens. It stops on its own with a big bang. This is really causing me great anxiety.
I have been diagnosed with PVC's, PAC's and short runs of PVC's, but the doctor says it is not a reason for concern (which I find hard to believe), because structurally I have a completely normal heart.
I am trying to live with the PVC's etc., but these fast runs of whatever are driving me nuts.
Am I wasting my time worrying about this? Does this sound normal? Do alot of people suffer from similar things? Will PVC's etc. ever go away (or are you stuck with them for life?)
Please note I am a 35 year old healthy female with no other problems other than allergies.
One more question I have is what is the normal heart rate for a five year old? Do children have much faster pulses than adults?
Thanks!
Doctor's Answer
by CCF CARDIO MD - DLB, Aug 02, 2000 12:00AM
Your doctor is correct in stating that, with a normal heart, your risk of life-threatening arrhythmias is extremely low. Likely, the PACs and PVCs are something that you will have to learn to live with. However, it may be worthwhile to wear a heart monitor long enough to catch the fast heart rates and make sure that it is not anything other than PVCs or PACs, and I would suggest this course of action.
While a normal resting pulse is considered to be less than 100 in adults, children tend to run a higher pulse - this is normal.
While a normal resting pulse is considered to be less than 100 in adults, children tend to run a higher pulse - this is normal.
I a healthy 33 year old that has all the tests. I have been running for about seven months and I am training to run a marathon. I think the exercise has also helped lesson them. Try not to worry so much and they might go away on there own. Do you smoke, drink alcohol, caffiene?? If you do stay away from these things.
Also, I have recently had RF ablation to correct spells of fast heart rate since I was a kid (PSVT). Sometimes they lasted several minutes sometimes for several hours. You should consider going to a cardio or electro doctor to be evaluated. Maybe they can cure your problem after running some tests. Good luck
I am not a doctor, just another patient with tachycardia, but thought something my doctor shared with me might be helpful to you.
When I was first diagnosed with my tachycardia, the doctor told me to try and take my pulse whenever I was having an "episode" and to see if my heartbeat was a "normal" beat-beat-beat or if it was sporadic, like it sounds like yours is. She told me that if it was sporadic to let them know because they would have to change the way they were treating me -- maybe change meds, etc. She didn't say that either way was more or less dangerous, just that they would have to treat a sporadic beat differently than a "normal" fast beat.
You might want to contact your doctor and at least see about maybe a 24-hr monitor or even a longer 30-day event monitor to see about catching one or more of these episodes on tape. That way your doctors can see exactly what your heart rate is doing.
If you want, feel free to email me at ***@****. I would be happy to talk to you.