Weird irregular heatbeat

[thinkreelblind]

Ok my heart has been beating irregular for the past 3 days straight, it is saturday night and started thursday afternoon.  i take medication for anxiety and fast heart rate but only take it as needed, which is not that often. my heart is not beating fast but every minute or so it just beats real hard and irregular for a few seconds. it is annoying and am worried about playing my hockey game tommorow. am i going to die?? there is not really any pain but this has never happened to me i am 24. please help me

[cindy707]

He is 100% right....must be nice thinkreelblind......i'd absolutely love to come off of a stress test like you did.....if they didn't see anything after they put you up against the Terminator test looks like life is good and you just got the best Christmas Present i could think of........looks like hockey is calling your name.....Merry Christmas to you and congrats...................................

[thinkreelblind]

i did go to the doc just to make sure though. they did this stress test and ran on a tredmill at an 18 incline for like dam 15 minutes. brutal. hooked up to like 10 little thingys lol it was weird.  he said my heart recovered better than hes ever seen and my heart looks perfect. im done worrying about it. he told me if it was somthing serious i would have know right away.  whew. makes me feel good. i dont know what id do if i couldnt play hockey.

[cindy707]

Hey you rock!!!!!!!  2 goals and 3 assists is nothing to sneeze at and i bet during the game you didn't even think about your heart.......funny how life is.....sounds like you need to step up your game w. hockey and live your life......unless...........something tells you somethings not right......then at that point you can wonder nor worry until you see someone.....sounds like life is good.....you go boyyyyyy!!!!!!!!

[thinkreelblind]

well i played my hockey game and now i feel fine as a matter of fact i got 2 goals and 3 assists. we wooped on em.  my heart rate is normal and it has not beat irregular since i got on the ice. mabye i did just need to work it out a bit. thanks for the tips.

[thinkreelblind]

yea its kinda like a flip flop. it beats normal and then out of nowhere beats hard and out of rhythm for a few beats. i feel the hard beat under my right peck muscle, through the ribs.  i was going to join the navy years back and at the physical i was real sick so my heart rate was up and the doc denied me and said my heart rate was to high and told me to get checked for heart disese i did when i felt better few weeks later and the doc said i was fine and my heart was healthy, but thats when i constantly thought "mabye there is somehting wrong" my heart would beat fast and would scare me so i went to heart doc and they took echo and i was on this monitor for a few months to collect when i thought it was beating fast.  they said i was fine and i play hockey religiously and never have heart rate or rhythm problems.  it is still doing the irregular thing as im typing this and has been going on since thursday so just a little odd. u know. i feel fine though. got plenty of energy not really any pain. and i got a normal pulse.

[itdood]

If you're feeling like a flip flop sensation, more than likely, it's called a premature ventricular contraction.  These are called ectopic beats.  They can happed in the ventricles or the atriums.  It could be a PAC as well, but these tend to be less noticeable in *most* people.  You haven't listed any symptoms that would be too concerning but I caveat this with it's my guess and you have no tests to analyze.  

You're ventricles, which are the most critical part of the heart, have something called 'backup pacer' cells in case they don't receive the normal signal to beat.  The normal signal starts from something called the sinoatrial node which starts the atriums.  This signal travels to the atrioventricular node which then fires the ventricles.  There is  chance for failure in this process, even in a very healthy heart, so nature built in these backup pacers in the ventricle to fire them in case they don't receive the normal impulse (usually > 3 seconds).  It's call an escape beat when this happens.  Pretty cool huh?

For a bunch of reasons though, these pacer cells can trigger when not needed.  This is called premature or ectopic beat.  Totally different from an escape beat and probably more bothersome because it feels like extra beats and scares people.  Things like caffeine or certain drugs can make pacers do this, in addition to a bunch of natural causes.

I say this to ease your mind, but you should still get checked to be sure.  If you're having an active episode you can wear a 24 hour holter monitor or a 14-30 day event monitor.  Usually the event monitors are better at catching them if you are having infrequent isolated ectopics.

[thinkreelblind]

yea ill give my doc a call. i wake up feeling fine like right now.  but it slowly comes back...just beat weird...i guess i am just scared to raise my pulse because now i am paranoid something is wrong. ill just take your advice and call my doc and make sure its cool that i play hockey. thanks

[cindy707]

I doubt very much you're going to die....its more scary than anything.  Sometimes w. Atrial Fibrillation which i am assuming you have it can take a little time for your heart to convert back to a normal pulse.  It sounds to me like its basically searching for the right electrical pattern to follow and thats why you're going in and out of it.  Yep it is annoying, and scary but alot of us go thru it.  Playing hockey may just be what you need to do to exert yourself and raise your heart rate a little that may very well re set everything.  If in doubt tho call your doc because he/she are the ones that really know what your body is telling you.  I would def. stay away from any caffeine (sodas, coffee, iced tea, etc.)  And most of all don't stress it,,,, you are young in obvious good shape and the odds if you are a betting man are with you.  Don't scare yourself into some weird heart thing thru anxiety....it won't solve a thing and you def. need to distract yourself and NOT concentrate on what is going on since it seems like a light episode.  Play a video game, watch a movie, go for a walk, write a letter to Santa, anything that takes your mind off of it i bet will work.  Like i said tho if in doubt call your doc for reassurance!!!!