What are Palpitations of the Heart?

I'm hoping there is someone that can tell me what palpitations of the heart are.

I've been having them off and on for awhile now and I have even worn the Holter Monitor 2 times in the last 7 months.

The first Dr says that my heart beats extra beats and that in 24hrs I had 158 extra beats and he says it is benign.


I will be getting the results on the second moniter this Thursday.I have been under so much stress for the last 3 years but I don't know if this is what causes the palpitations or not.

As far as i know it's not alll that uncommon, in fact alot of people get them, it just depends on the kind that you have.
Most likely it will be ok, they're probably just doing a test to make sure.
I think my mum and/or sister has them too.
I could be wrong but from what i remmeber is that the danger is that the palpations may for whatever reason go into overdrive and speed up your heart for a set amount of time, putting you in danger.
I think they may also be caused by the electrical current around your heart, something to do with the electirc beats being off sometimes.
This is all from memory, i'm sure you could find more info on google.

Hi,
Your post was very helpful because it made me remember that a doctor told me years ago that I have a problem with the electrical part of my heart.
I'll be sure to tell my doctor this when I see him Thursday.
Thanks!

palpitations are abnormal heartbeats and can be caused by a variety of factors depending on what type of palpitations you're having. 158 "palpitations" in 2 hours is NOT benign. different areas of your heart have different preset rates they will beat. the prominent one is the sinus node which is set to beat at 60-100 beats per minute. if you are a smoker then your atria (top part of the heart) will usually override the sinus node and you can have palpitations called atrial fibrillation. this is dangerous because you can develop blood clots since a portion of the heart is not really beating but just fibrillating. doctors will suggest you quit smoking and take an aspirin a day. if the ventricles (botttom part of your heart) are palpitating, that is a much more serious matter. the ventricles are set to beat at a much slower rate (about 40 beats per minute) so that if the rest of the heart gets lazy and doesn't send out a signal to beat, the ventricles will kick in as a last ditch effort. unless you're an athlete, 40 beats per minute is too slow and you'll be tired all the time. the real danger is that with that slow a heart rate and your ventricles being the main pace setter for your heart, it could "panic" and start going into ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. both of these are life-threatening. stress can mimic a heart attack and can even cause heart attacks. suggest you find a way to decompress. easier said than done, i know. and get a second opinion. if you know your blood type, i would suggest eating right for your blood type (see peter d'adamo book). my father dropped dead at age 41 from sudden cardiac death and i'd been having chest pains since my 30's. i started eating right for my blood type and the chest pains went away (now 48). having worked in a heart hospital i can tell you that my unofficial study-basically, my personal observation, is that people with type A or AB blood have the most heart problems at an early age (40's-50's age group). also, if you have a "negative wallet biopsy" (poor or no insurance) the doctors will also say "you're fine". i took a guy to the ER a few weeks ago (no insurance). he was GRAY, short of breath, nauseous, sweating, having chest pain and his cardiac enzymes (indicative of heart attack) were elevated all three times they took them over 24 hours. doctor said he had-get this-"an ear infection!" no one even looked in his ears so i guess that was a clairavoyant diagnosis. i've worked cardiac intensive care unit for 26 years. i think i know a flipping heart attack when i see one. anyway, palpitations are a warning that all is not well-get it checked out and remember there's no such thing as a "benign" cardiac symptom.

You sure have alot of knowledge about this and thank you very much for all the information.

That was 158 extra beats in 24 hours,

I have an appointment to see a Cardioligist on the 15th of August.

I have good insurance so I'm hoping I'll get good care.

My blood type is Type AB Negative and I am a smoker so I already have 2 things against me .

I've noticed that this bothers me the most when I'm real nervous , stressed out or tired.

I'm going to print out all of the excellent information that you gave to me and I will definely keep my appointment with the Cardioligist.

By the way, what can they do to treat this condition?

I used to smoke cigarettes and at that time I had the butterfly chest quite often, enough to be concerned, I was probably stressed at that time as well.
I haven't smoked for many years and palpatations like I had are history too, except for the rare occasional one here or there.
Use this as a cue to give up smoking, sort of like a warning shot.

News flash!!!, cigarettes cause health problems

I suffered from it myself in my 30's... the cause? Too much caffeine. I had to limit myself to one cup of coffee a day. And remember, caffeine is present in a lot of things we eat and drink, and certain over the counter medications.

www.nlm.nih.gov...

(A-fib) is not benign.

www.heartpoint.com...

As Mirthful pointed out, tobacco and caffeine will definitely do it. As will asthma meds, also if your thyroid level is too high you'll get them. Some herbal sups will do it too.

You can also have a condition where you get a wild node or a wrap-around. Your atria have a lot of pacing sites, the sinus node being one of them as whitewave pointed out. You have several backups. They're supposed to run at a slower rate than the sinus node, and if it doesn't show up in time they take over. But sometimes they don't get the word, or don't pay attention, or just decide to let fly on their own, and then you can get extra beats as they put in their two cents for no reason.

There's another condition where you "grow" a conduction path from a ventricle to an atrium and the signal "wraps around". That will occasionally give you erratic beats or outright tachycardia.

Wild nodes and stray conduction paths are simple to fix, and if that's it should show up on the Holter pretty clearly.

Well can someone tell me what can be done to fix this problem besides giving up smoking and caffiene?
Is it surgery or medications?

It depends on the cause. An insensitive node or false circuit is fixed by radio ablation.

If it's a caffeine or tobacco issue, stopping is the trick.

There's a bunch of possible causes, and each has a different fix. A lot of times they'll give you plavix, an aspirin regimen and an arrhythmia drug.

If your lucky they'll give you rat poison

The first thing you need to do is quite smoking, as your doctor i'm sure told you. This is a serious thing and i don't mean to lecture you, i know how hard it is i just quit about a year and half ago. I found that that smoke away stuff works really well. I used to smoke 2 and a half packs a day and was able to quit with that stuff. Also another good place to find information is webmd.com

HowardRoark

Have you had a bad experience with Rat Poison?

It sounds like you have.

The first thing to do is not stress about it.

158 ectopic (Extra) beats in 24 hrs ? Thats actually very little to worry about. No ones heart on earth runs at a steady never changing rate - and all of the people who advocating stopping nicotine intake / caffine intake / exercise Uptake are spot on.

The heart is a remarkable organ, and if you have had a 12 lead ECG to have a look at the electrical activations of your heart and the doctors say its benign, then it is begnign. ANY dead / dying heart tissue is easily picked up, as is heart block / and any / all internal malfunctions. If it was any serious problem your Dr would not of let you leave his / her office.

Wow Whitewave, thats a real bad case of too poor for me to care syndrome you encountered there!! glad its not like that here in the UK.

[edit on 29/7/06 by GSA]

i had a syndrom that sounds similar to this, it was called wolf-parkinsons-white syndrom (named after three doctors), and was basically an extra piece of tissue that sends the signal from your top chamber to your bottom. so instead of my heart beating bumpbump... bumpbump, its bumpbumpbumpbumpbump... bumpbump, because the extra piece of tissue is sending the signal that was supposed to stop at the bottom chamber (giving the second bump) but instead sent the signal right back to the top chamber causing extra bumps back and forth like a loop circuit.

they were able to fix this (temporarily, its back) when i was 16 by sending a small wire in through my artery vein in my groin, and a camera in my artery vien in my neck-shoulder area. then they found the extra tissue with the wire and burned it with shot of electricity.

of coarse any stimulants (cafine, nicatine, thc) would cause my heart to race in that fasion, but it certainly never caused the growth of an extra piece of tissue. i'm not sure what did.

Originally posted by MagicaRose
HowardRoark

Have you had a bad experience with Rat Poison?

It sounds like you have.

Rat Poison is used in Warfin?
I knew an old man that would take this to make his blood thicker? or was it thinner?
thin his blood ,so when he shaved or cut himself, he had to be careful that he did not bleed to death...so yeh!
Anyway, the palpatations you mention are seriously caused by a few things..
smoking,
Caffeine and stress.....I know many people will say 'dont stress', but it's easy to say then it is to actually not to stress.

Iodine is also assciated with your thyroid(member mentioned thyroid may be too high)
Which in many cases is good for weight loss, but many have problems and take thyroid medication to help combat the problem.
I notice heart palapatations when I'm stressed and have way too many coffees,especially before bed time.

My sister in law had 210 beats per minute not long ago, and this was caused by stress and also a problem which she never was told since a baby.
They had to put a tube into her groin area(on either side)and take a look with a microscope.....
She has only one coffee,and drinks only herbal teas.....sometimes Doctors dont have all the answers, but people themselves can diagnose by paying attention to when this happens.
I wish you all the best and good health
helen

I want to thank all of you for all the information.

Some of it scared me a bit but was also very informative.
Thanks a bunch!!

I used to suffer a lot from palpatations when I was younger and I smoked and drank a lot of coffee(as mirthful says maybe a trigger),

The only way i could describe the feeling was like a loss of breath with an electrical/metally sensation running down the middle of my chest if you can understand that.

With that in mind my thoughts are with you magicerosa

Lots of good info here. just want to add my 2 cents. I have been suffering with PVCs (premature ventricular contractions-bottom of the heart) for a few years now. My Dad died of an MI when he was 46 so any heart issue scared me to death. I also wore a holter monitor and the PVCs were diagnosed as benign. Because of my family history my wonderful cardiologist put me through a stress echo ( a test where you have an ultra sound of you heart and then excercise while hooked up to an EKG and blood pressure monitor, then at peak exercise you stop and another ultra sound is done to see how fast you heart contracts to normal size-it's a definitive test, especially for women.) Anyway I had some atrial fibrillation (top of the heart). Although it was only 4 beats I was put on a baby aspirin and Toprol XL (a beta blocker). Things have been much better. But here's the thing. I am assuming that you're a woman (if you're not then disregard this_javascript:icon('') My PVCs occured during pregnancy but came back with a vengence during perimenopause (which started at 40 and I am 44) along with a whole host of crazy symptoms that landed me at 3 doctors, and included balance testing and a CT scan. So if you are of a "certain age", and things are changing you may want to check in with your GYN too. Sorry if this made anyone uncomfortable but I suffered so long with my peri symptoms that I have made it a personal quest to help other women. Feel free to U2U me if you need to.