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Irregular heartbeat, docs stumped why?

Basic: I'm 26 years old, non-smoker, non-drinker. BMI 20.7. Relatively healthy diet, no junk food, no trans fat, little red meat, little sugar, only thing I indulge in is too much cheese occasionally. Little caffeine, just tea on my days off, most days nothing. No medications except doxycycline for acne.

Five days ago I found my heart pounding in my chest for no reason at all. The entire day it went like this like a giant kettle drum in my chest. After this went on for a few days I got scared and went to the doctor. They timed my heartbeat, checked my blood pressure (125/85), did an EKG, and told me I had an irregular hearbeat. Basically, it's all over the place, speeds up and slows down at a whim for no apparently reason at all. Thing is, they're not sure why.

I'm not on any weird drugs and I'm not feeling any particular stress or anxiety these days (except over THIS, of course...). There's nothing unusual about the beats themselves, and I've got no other symptoms, no dizziness, fainting, shortness of breath, nothing. Just for some unknown reason my heart has gone all wonky on me.

The doctors just told me to take it easy and come back in a month. I'm scared to death and afraid I'm going to go into cardiac arrest at a moment's notice (which I'm sure isn't helping the problem). I have a sneaking suspicion that they're just hoping it'll go away on its own. I just wish I had ANY idea what might be causing this out of the blue.
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1137980 tn?1281285446
Hi read your post again...if you are indeed having 24 hour a day palps then you definately need to get proactive and re contact the doctor because this is not normal for anyone and is very hard on the heart muscles....an EKG can do its job in an incredibly short amount of time...manually taking your pulse i am sure you know takes 15-30 seconds and then we multiply it times 2 or 4 to get an accurate reading and with medical equipment it really requires less time.  If you are looking for something that will give you an answer and is more timely i would definately ask the heart doc if he/she could put you on a 24 hour holter monitor or a heart card that will give them a more in depth reading.  The great thing about a heart card is that if you are having an event of some sort you phone in to a center where you place the heart card against the mouthpiece of a phone and it is transmitted to a center where your results of whatever you are feeling is read immediately and if anything at all comes up that could be termed as dangerous to you you'll receive a phone call within a very short period of time giving you instructions on what to do and where to go as well as they notify your doc immediately.  I understand your frustration and have also felt the same from time to time before i had my situation corrrected but this is one of those things where you need a complete story of what is really going on and not just a shoulder shrug from someone..good luck to you and have a great weekend....
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Avatar universal
Well, if this was an temporary, occasional thing I would agree that it's no big deal and would probably not even have gone to the doc about it. But this isn't an instance of occasional little heart flutters based on something that's happening, it's constant, 24 hour a day palpatations. There's no rhyme or reason to the changes in my heart rate; my EKG only lasted for ten seconds but during that time the space between my heart beats changed half a dozen times.
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1137980 tn?1281285446
I would listen to your docs because they must feel that the episodes are benign.  The chances of you going into cardiac arrest with this would be super unusual so you can relax there.  It sounds like you are trying to isolate where the problem is and maybe you can and maybe you can't.  It could just be a random, situation where the electrical activity of your heart misfired trust me it happens and is usually no biggie.  Stressing yourself out over the what ifs could basically make the episodes worse...it could be something a simple as an adrenaline push thru your body and anything at all could set that off.....excitement, something visual, something you read, something you are looking forward to, driving a car fast, just everyday life.  Its great you have no other symtoms so that in itself almost gives you a clear path to follow....hearts go wonky on us because they are run by electrical activity and sometimes i like to think we get a power surge thru them......if you are scared the best advice i can give you is call the doc back for some reasssurance and for goodness sakes don't be reading all of the bad stuff on line on what it could be that won't apply to you because you'll scare yourself to death...i definately wouldnt worry..
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