Heart Flutter

[Shooidtap]

I am 19 years old and do not have any known health problem.

About 3 weeks ago I had an irregular episode with my heart.  I was lying down in my bed, when all of a sudden I felt like I had to throw up.  I had indigestion all night, because I had had 8 cans of mountain dew (which contains a pretty good amount of caffeine).

Anyways, I went to the bathroom, when all of a sudden my heart started to flutter.  within 3 seconds I was about to pass out, already blacking out, when I all of a sudden snapped back to it, and my heart was still fluttering.  I had a pulse, but when I felt my chest my heart rhythm was all over the place.  

I went into the doctor the next morning, and had an EKG taken.  It showed up fine.  The doctor said it was most likely due to the caffeine I had, and that my heart just had an irregular rhythm because of it.  

The next couple weeks, my heart kept bothering me (after quitting caffeine completely).  What would happen is I would still get this really bad indigestion and freak out that the same thing was going to happen again.  Now, ever since this has happened, the past week I've been feeling under the weather, and rather weak.  My appetite has gone down quite a bit, and my stomach is always upset, and I feel like I have the need to burp all the time.

This whole situation has me really scared, and I would really appreciate it if someone could let me know if they had this, or what this could all be related to.  Thank you!

--Mike

[SwanSong]

I have a heart condition, perimyocarditis, and can't tolerate ANY caffeine until it's healed. There goes my favorite treat, dark chocolate. The smallest amount causes irregular heart beats.

Caffeine is a very strong stimulant. It's so strong that when a cardiologist does a stress test on you, sodas containing caffeine, chocolate, coffee, or any caffeine containing OTC medicines or supplements need to be temporarily discontinued until after the test is over.

I can believe that if you drank 8 cans of Mountain Dew that you'd have heart palpitations and flutter and even atrial fibrillation. The nauseated feeling in your throat is common with heart palpitations. I've had this with my condition and didn't know what it was.

You can have an irregular rhythm caused by the caffeine, especially if you consumed a lot at one time, which you did.

[SillyHeart]

Yes, a lot of caffeine can trigger an irregular rhythm.  See the doctor again for an event monitor (which you wear for several days or weeks at a time) if it happens again.