Heart skips

[radioguy]

My heart has been skipping for about 4 years now. I am 33 yr male in good health. Two years ago I had a 24 hour holter, echo, elecrto cardio, thyroid test and chest xray. According to my doc. no problems present. I was however diag. with GAD and was given Zanax for about two months. Took myself off with docs approval and started natural therapy for GAD. I seem to get heart skips (beats normal, pause, big beat, normal again) when under stress or just whenever. It usually catches me off guard and is very upsetting. To the point where I become anxious and or very depressed. I have been researching the possibility of a gastro connection though not convinced. I do suffer from occasional reflux usually from wrong foods. I am 6'2 and 235 lbs. Heart pulse resting 72 and BP is 130/82 I thought a lower weight may help. I have also begun exercising more vigorously, seems to eleviate the symptoms for short periods of time. I live in a northern Ontario Canadian community and my family doc has moved to another city. Like most other people in this community now have to resort to a walk in clinic for med help. I find this frustrating as you nget a different doc. every time. Please write back with any suggestions.

Radio Guy.

[Ianna]

Hi Steve,
-
How is the excercise-program that you planned developing?
You must be over the flu now ;-), so tell me, do you go walking and biking now in nature?
Does it do you good?
I'm thinking of the same strategy.
I have a home-trainer, but outside, you are right, it's different; much more distraction; but scary too, you know: WHAT IF.....
-
How are you doing, and what did you do about food and supplements? Did you change, left out or add some things.
-
Bey, greetings from Holland.  
- ***Ianna*** -

...and the beat goes on....

[Steve-M]

The breathless thing seems to be very common. I have it myself at times and have read it many times here on the forum. The two explanations I've heard are:

1- Valves in the heart opened at the right time for the mis-timed beat to force blood back into the lungs.

2- The "second fear" or adrenalin generated by your body in response to the fear of the mis-timed beat.

In either case it seems to be of no interest to doctors. I have been told by a cardiologist that it doesn't mean anything and not to worry about it. He was not interested enough to even ask questions about the feelings I felt.

Hang in there, Steve

[therclan]

I have been experiencing this problem for a few years now.  I had EKG's and holter monitor.  I was told my condition was PVC's.  I had something like 1000 extra beats in one day.  I was given 25Mg of Atenolol.  It seemed to help for awhile, but now it's back.  My only question is this:  Does anyone else feel like their breath is taken away (briefly) during the bout of "skippies"?  I am going to talk to the doc about giving up the atenolol as it doesn't appear to do any good!  I just hate the feeling that my breath is taken away....  Does anyone else experience this?

[ozland]

Wow!  There are a lot of us!  I recently had a cathetar ablation done last week.  Unfortunately, since it was thought to be uni-focal, the EP said that this would most likey work.  It ended up being multi-focal.  

I am very discouraged.  I do NOT tolerate the meds.  And now I'm on them again.

Two days after the procedure, my husband took me to the ER.  Now I have pac's!  About 3,000 per minute.  The meds give me about 3-4 hours of relief per day, but the rest of the time I'm feeling these.  Will go back to EP doc tomorrow for yet another holter to see if they are still pac's or pvc's.

Has anyone else has ablation done?

[Gnatty]

I have found that a hard cough will usually settle my fluttering and heart skips for quite a long period - long enough for me to forget about them anyway. I've noticed this particularly while I am resting or am driving in the car. It gets to the point where it's driving me mad, I take a deep breath and do a couple of very hard coughs - and they disappear. Sometimes my heart feels a bit "wobbly" for a few seconds (I don't know how else to describe it, a bit like it's trying to get its breath) - but then it all just settles down. Can anyone explain why this should be? It's like the sharp movement of my lungs jolts my heart muscle out of its irregularity.

[Steve-M]

I am planning to start out walking for my exercise. I have a treadmill at home but find that it's too easy to focus on the heart. The more I think about how my heart is doing the better the nerve pathways from my heart to the worry center of my brain work. I have noticed that the less I think about it the harder it is to feel any beat irregularities. I know they're still going on but they're harder to detect.

I also think walking or biking in nature will give me something positive to think about outside my body instead of always looking inward. I will start this new program as soon as I'm over the flu and report back my progress.