What causes heart palpitations?

[jur4us]

Heloo..I'm a 57 year old female and in good health...I had blood work done recently and everything was normal and my Dr. said I was in good health for my age. I take no medication. About a month ago I started getting heart palpitations, which are quite uncomfortable while they are happening...is this normal for a person my age? What causes this to happen? Should I be concerned?
Thank you for your time.....:)

[nancylr]

I agree with cindy707.  I, too, get heart palpitations (heart fluttering).  I am 58 years old and am in excellent health.  My heart palps started about 8 months ago.  First time, scared me to death.  I went to my internist and he thought it was just stress and gave me xanax.  I told only half a pill (10 mg) and it did help.  As I was afraid to become addicted I stopped taking them and tried to ignore the palps.  One night it became so bad that I ended up in the emergency room.  I was kept over-night and had an eco-cardiogram, ekg, and blood work...all normal.  I made an appointment with a cardiologist who also gave me an ekg, blood work and I wore a holter monitor for two weeks.  He said everything was fine.  Had some benign palps but nothing to worry about.  I do not drink coffee, but love tea; so I've switched to decaf...seems to help sometimes; but I must say when I get very stressed I get the palps. again.  So I try to keep them under control with the stress situtation (easier said than done).  Good Luck!  Hope this helps!

[cindy707]

At your age i wouldn't be surprised......heart palps as people grow older are really pretty common as long as you don't see anything else come with them so i wouldn't worry too much.  Find the trigger points to what is starting them in your body...the most common are caffeine intake.....coffee, colored sodas, smoking, chocolate, red wine, energy drinks , stress, not drinking enough water, not enough sleep at nite and stress are a few to name for you.  You may simply just have to adjust your lifetyle a little bit to get rid of them if the doc feels that they are pretty benign.  If you get other symtoms tho i would make an appt. with a heart doc so that they can take a listen....but no i wouldn't worry from what you've described.............have a great weekend