Pauses in Heart Rate

[jayjay07]

Hi all.

For years (5 infact) i have had problems with the old ticker. For 5 years i have had fast, slow, irreg. jumpy, skipped and missed beats but lately i have noticed something different.

At college, i will sit there and out of the blue i get a massive jolt, like a hard skip and a  pause for about a second, then i feel all tingly, and then i go back to normal. Just i was gargling water (i have sore throat) and i had a pause that made me jump, like life stopped for a second. I checked my pulse and it was fine, i felt normal after.

Im 23, im a student, i drink cafeen and alcohol sometimes and i dont eat or drink like im supposed to.

Anyone have similar problems? I get them every day, i also suffer with anxiety which makes them alot worse. The big skip/pause i get 5-8 times a day. Sometimes i dont get them for weeks/months, sometimes i get them throughout the day.

Thanks

[jayjay07]

I drink a lot of water, i have the odd coffee and today i had a few lagers (very low volume, lowest you can get) and after being told that my heart is fine i have only noticed 1 skip the last 48 hours, and that was at about 11am this morning, i didn't eat any food.

I am going to speak to my doc on the 18th about what happens from here. I think most my anxiety came from 'thinking' i have a serious heart problem. Even today i have done things i never normally do and i have been fine with it.

Its a blessing. I am going to try to Fruit, Veg, No Alch. No Caff. Diet next week, and water all the way, i may feel even better.

[Sunshine47]

You are exactly right about the Caffeine and stress. I have been 3 months solid with PVC's and PAC's and this is post 5 years ablation. I had been drinking Caffeine everyday for that amount of time until I tried to figure out what brought back those crazy things with such a vengence. I found this site and started reading about other people like myself and realized that could be the answer. Well I have been 3 weeks caffeine free after the terrible migraines(withdrawls) and I will never be stress free as a long as I have this stress related job that I am in and a teenager. LOL. I still have some PVC's and PAC's but nothing like before. I know that I will never be free of them. I have tried to have a mindset that they are who I am and I have to learn to live with it just like a birth defect. You wish you could be free of it but it is you and it will always be you. I hate them and they scare the **** out of me and my family but I try to pretend that they are going to stop at any minute. If I sit and pondered on it I would be insane. I have found peace with this site. It is good to hear that I am not by myself. Sometimes when I am reading others post I feel as though they are telling my story. Trust me I have had this for 37 years. God has kept me here for a reason and I plan on being around to see my grandchildren. I am not going to let these Demons that live in my  HEART take my life away from me. I plan on keep on keeping on. Good luck to everyone who has to put up with this terrible nusicance. I have to admire everyone of  you.

[Track_1996]

Hi jayjay. What you've described in your post sounds very similar to what I have recently been dianosed with ... PVCs, or Premature Ventricular Contracts. First, rest assured that unless you have underlying heart disease, PVCs are relatively harmless. Read up on them and you will see time and time again that people are being told by their cardiologists not to worry... they are annoying but harmless. Now, if like me you get other symptoms along with the PVCs, such as headaches, lightheadedness, etc, then you might want to consider getting on a beta-blocker. Even if you don't get those symptoms, if your PVCs are so frequent that they drive you nuts, you still might consider a betablocker. The one I'm on is working great for me ... its called Nadolol. As a previous poster pointed out, before all of this you should probably just try modifying your diet. Completely abstain from alcohol, caffeine, stress (hah, like thats possible), and try to eat lots of fruits and veggies. Try this for a week or so and see if it helps. If not, I would go talk to a cardiologist. Best of luck!

[jayjay07]

Went for the echo today, i was literally shaking, i was that scared. After it was over he said "Everything looks normal, ill send the results to your doctor", which was a great job.

After 6 years of thinking there is a major problem, it feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulder being told that my heart looks normal.

I understand that there could be other causes, which i assume the doctor will take the necessary routes and paths, but to find out i havn't got anything wrong with the old ticker is a great blessing.

[jayjay07]

Im awaiting an EKG test, i doubt they will see anything happening. My doc thinks there is nothing wrong and i am perfectly healthy, but he never hears the bouts .... actually he has once but he didn't comment on them.
The heart stuff started years ago, i was given Beta blockers after choking on a sweet, the doc said it was anxiety so i was taking tablets i didn't need to be, which made me paranoid, so i think they started from this because before that i was fine. I await the test results, i try not to let it run my life though, im going university next year, nothing will stop me going. I can ignore it for a while, but when its bad, its scares the life out of me.

[sonny372]

for clarity i meant not to take anti cold and allergy medicines. they have stimulants also

[sonny372]

Hi, i have a lot of experience with these pemature heart beats myself. Of recent i have been having them everyday sometimes 4 in row. I have felt them when i stand up too quickly and my heart is beating too fast or i can be just sitting there and i get them also. My doctor told me to cut out caffeine an alcohol 3 years ago, back when the weren't as frequent. I don't use any stimulants and i am afraid to . I still get these things reguardless of stimulants. So first thing i would do is stop all of the stimulant intake, and take into consideration some types of medicines, for instance cold relief asthma antihistamenes for allegries. You also might want to start eating more vegtables and fruit.Nothing is for sure but eating what nature intended for you instead of all man made stuff with chemicals and additives and sor forth is better.Your body needs certtain amounts of vitamins an minerals to function properly.You should go get checked out and have a holter monior or event recorder put on you  to track the arrythmia and find out what kind it is. I would advise this over a stress test due to the fact that they want to put you into an arrythmia so see it for themselves and make a determination. I think that is dangerous, but that is my perspective on it.These sensations are scary and i feel them too. Good luck and god bless