I was 17 when I first started having Palpitations I have had them on and off ever since. I’m 33 now. I went to docs then and had a Cardio work up all normal. They chalked it up to anxiety. My doc tells me no my heart is structurally fine. I did have an episode of A fib but I was doing a lot of things I shouldent have been. Namely drinking a lot of alcohol. If your worried about your heart the worst thing you can do is use any kind of mind altering substance. I had to learn that the hard way so if you steer clear of that now your doing yourself a favor. Trust me.
The answer to your question is maybe. I only say that because there are many thing you feel in your heart could be benign and may be not even your heart at all. Probably more likely the case than a serious medical problem. Especially at your age. The only way to know for sure is to get a work up. Best of luck and feel better
When i was experiencing a period of days of PVC's (skips), my cardiologist told me that he considers 4 normal beats in a row to ve a normal heart rhythm, and while increasing my beta blocker, did nothing else except monitor me further. Indeed, there are people here on the forum who experience upwards of a confirmed 25,000 PVC's per day and who go basically untreated.
All you need to do to get a holter monitor btw is just approach your doctor and tell him the following:
"I am experiencing forceful palpitations in pairs of 2 or 3. Id like to wear a holter to assess my pvc burden and to rule out the presence of triplets and non sustained vtach"
100% guaranteed to get a cardiac workup. :)
Sounds normal.. Usually these feelings are caused by pvc's.
They come and go at different points in life, sometines they have triggers, sometimes not.
Skipped beats followed by periods of mildly elevated heart rate are pretty standard with them.
Everyone gets pvcs from time to time, so they are normal.. However some individuals become more sensitive in terms of actually feeling them. Most folks might actually feel 1 out of 100 pvcs they have.. Others might feel all 100. Unfortunately theres really no way to predict who experiences the sensations associated with then and who does not.. And scientists are largely in the dark as to why some folks get so symptomatic.
Anxiety after a pvc is natural.. I think its easy to blame anxiety for everything, but we tend to forget that our brains are hardwired to freak out when something isnt right with our vital organs.
Its definately more common for pvc's to create anxiety then for anxiety to create pvc's
They dont become dangerous untill you start having large amounts of 'skipped beats' (at least 1 out of every 10 heart beats), or if you were born with certain forms of congenital heart disease.
Unfortunately for you they are very hard to control.. And the best results come from invasive cardiac procedures. Medicines such as beta blockers can be effective at reducing the amount of pvc's but its literally like a 50/50 chance with any given med.
The best course of action for you is to visit your doctor and reauest a referral to a cardiologist to get a 'holter monitor'. This monitor takes and saves an ecg for 24 hours while you go about your day (its the size of an old ipod, and is worn around the neck).. The results will tell the doctor just what percentage of beats are pvcs or pacs (we call this your burden), along with any other issues that may be going on electrically.
This data is what will guide your treatment options moving forward.