Heart Fluttering Out Of Nowhere

[nefeli1986]

Hello!

I am 25 years old, female, in good health generally.

I am  of normal height and weight (5ft 7/127.6 pounds/ BMI  19.4). I try to keep fit by walking a lot and swimming in the summer. I never smoke/drink, I eat healthy and I try to maintain a good lifestyle. I have no personal or family history of heart problems.

I have had iron deficiency throughout my life and I usually run a rather low blood pressure (that gives me trouble when i stand up from a seated position) but other than that, I have no serious health issues.

Unfortunately, I am a really stressful and optimistic person and I tend to "hold in" my fears and anxieties and transform them into psychosomatic incidents.

In the last 10 days, I've occasionally experienced a sense of heart fluttering. It's quite scary and it comes out of nowhere. One minute I am fine and then I feel for a split second as if my heart misses a beat. And then everything is fine again. It happens only once, there's no sequence or anything. It doesn't happen every day but it most frequently occurs in the morning (about 2 hours after I've  had my morning coffee) and when I lie down in bed at night. On a particularly stressful day I felt this fluttering 3 times.

I used to get these sensations when I was a child but I didn't pay much attention back then so I can't tell much about their frequency or pattern of occurence. I can only tell that they are not new to me.

I don't experience any other symptoms (tachycardia/shortness of breath etc).

I am very very very worried. I have no insurance right now so I can't afford to run expensive examinations. However, I  consulted my pathologist (and family doctor) who took my blood pressure and listened to my heart beat and he believes that everything is fine. He says that this heart fluttering is normal and that it should only worry me if i start experiencing other symptoms as well or if it starts happening more than 20 times a day. He suggested reducing my coffee intake and controling my stress. Also, he adviced me to eat more meat and leafy green vegetables, in case my iron levels are low again.

He also mentioned something about checking my thyroid if this heart fluttering keeps on for more than a month.

I am too worried to search online in case I find that my condition is indicative of heart failure or something.

Could such sensations be attributed to stress? Could it be due to my low iron levels?

Do you think it is indicative of something more serious?

[josh246]

HI I am sorry you arnt feeling well.Let me try to help you feel a little better.The skipped feelings in your heart sound like PVC or PAC this is basically a premature heart beat that comes a little early.In a normal healthy heart they are not dangerous but can be very scary.Now smoking and drinking and caffeine can make them happen more often or trigger them.Now if your doctor thinks your ok im sure you are.But just in-case here what I would watch out for.If you get more then 4 in a row with out stopping this is a run and that's something that you need to see a doctor about.Because if you have them in a row with out stopping it could be a arythima of some sort and their no way to tell with out a ekg and a holter or event monitor to record them as you have them.If you get a run and it wont stop call 911. Now if you have them and you start getting short of breath or light headed you need to see a doctor.Now pvc and pac are something that most adults have some can feel them like me and you and others well they just don't feel them.If its just PVC or PAC and your healthy and the doc said your ok then dont worry their more just scary than anything.But if something changes like i said and you get runs of them of 4 or more then you need to tell your doctor so he can do a work up on you.But relay unless your having symptoms of runs or lightheaded form them or short of breath then I would go by what the doctor said.But if you start having a lot more of them or anything changes call your doctor.If Most of the time their nothing to worry about because almost everyone has pvc or pac just you don't always feel them.I hope you feel better and that this helped you.