frequent heart palpitations

I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse 3 years ago. Recently the symptoms have become quite severe. I have at least 3 strong palpitations a day. A couple weeks ago I was standing in my bathroom after peeing and my heart started to palpitate. The palpitations were extremely strong(unlike any I'd had in the past), the anxiety from the palpitations made them worsen, I must have had 7-10 strong beats in a row (I thought I was going to collapse and have heart failure or something). On occasion when I am just sitting still or doing nothing at all I get these palpitations, sometimes they are continuous, and some times it feels like just one strong beat. They make me very fatigued, and sometimes give me a feeling similar to depression. What could be making this worse? should I be seriously concerned? I don't drink caffeine, and try to stay away from sugar, and I'm not currently taking any medications. The palpitations don't hurt, I rarely feel any pain, sometimes a dull pain after the occurrence.  I'm 20, 160 pounds, and I exercise daily.  Could these palpitations lead to heart failure?

thank you.

[cindy707]

Hi sorry you are going thru this.  Mitral Valve Prolapse or MVP in itself is usually pretty benign and common among the human race so unless it is a serious prolapse you probably have to learn to live with it and if it were serious at the time of the exam they would have acted on it pretty quickly.  So in that manner you can probably relax a little.  The palps in themselves will not lead to heart failure that is a whole different situation.  When your heart has to work in overtime as it was doing it would be natural that you would be a little tired afterwards.  I personally think its time for you to have another work up done since its been 3 years just to check out whats going on with you but in the mean time when you get them you could try a vagal stimuli which sometimes is known to re-set the electrical activity of the heart which causes palps and rapid heart beats.  The easiest way to do this is plug your nostrils off with two fingers squeezing the nose closed,  close your mouth and blow hard and count to 10 and release slowly it may take a time or two to re-set it but it really does work in a lot of cases.  Electrical mis firing of the heart causes alot of palpatations and a fib episodes so this may be a quick relief for you...however....you need to find out what is causing your episodes and the best advise i can give you is to call a heart doctor tomorrow and make an appt. and tell them what is going on with you so that you will know and they can treat it and help you.  It would be incredibly rare for you to suddenly just keel over from palpatations more than anything they are just scary.  Relax a little but make the appt. and always remember that anxiety and stress makes them worse.  Let us know how it goes........