Anyone else suffer heart palpitations? PACs?

gazz98

gazz98

Joined
Sep 3, 2008
Messages
5,364
I spent Sun night in the ER. I can feel my heart skip a beat now and then. Normally I get 1 or 2 a week and sometimes I can go 2 months w/o feeling one. I told my primary care physican and he said it was normal. He has done ekgs in his office, all were normal. Given in the frequency of the episodes, he felt it was something to keep an eye on but nothing really needed to be done asap.Sun night I felt like 25 in a 2 hour period and it freaked me out. I wondered if my heart was beating irregular. So I drove myself to the ER.

EKG, blood work, chest x ray all normal. I was on a heart monitor for about 5 hours. I had some skips while it was on but nothing set off the alarm. The Doc looked over the printout and said he found a few "slight irregularities" in my heartbeat. He guessed they were Premature atrial contraction or PACs. They consulted my primary Doc and agreed to release me.

I had another ekg later on Mon at my primary care Doc and all was normal. He is scheduling me for a portable heart monitor and echocardiogram of my heart to rule out structural damage.

Is anyone else living with daily heart palpitations? I've looked online, seems quit a few people have em.

I can't wait for the ER bill to come in. My limited insurance doesnt seem like it covers much. Keep an eye out for my knife for sale threads. /sigh

And to top it all off, I got a speeding ticket to my primary care docs office. He is by a school zone, normally the speed limit is 45 but if the sign blinks 25....busted...
another $125 down the drain. I'm gonna ask the judge for some help giving my great driving record.

/rant off
 
I was in my late mid 30s, and I could feel my heart beat in my throat, and I got dizzy. My heart beat was doing double time and the monitor they had me hooked up to started beeping, due to my abnormal heart beat. I was taking that legal tweaker metabolife stuff, and that was the cause. Everyone was on it at the time, get more work done, have more energy, have more beats per minute and end up in the emergency room. One they put me on a walker for ekg, I was fine. I stopped taking that dangerous drug prior to them even banning it. It went away. Look for organic solutions when you can. I am 45 now, and on a vitamin regimen and really feel about 10 yrs. younger. Incoming prayers for your health. You are on your own with the judge you lead footed scoff law!.:D
 
You haven't been on a holter monitor yet? Wow. The holter monitor is a device you wear typically for a few days and it records every beat for analysis. Typically, they run the data through a computer program which sifts out the "normal" beats and quickly allows a cardiologist to review the problem cases.

Oh, and speaking of cardiologist, you haven't mentioned one yet. Get one. G.P.s are great, but you obviously have a specific and specialized problem.

Your problem may be just an annoyance that you'll have to live with... or it may be a serious and growing problem. Get an expert to check it out.

The echocardiograph is going to be one of the neatest experiences you'll have to actually see your heart beating. It's amazing. I'm no cardiologist, but I would suggest an Echo Stress Test which combines the echocardiograph with a stress test.
 
I have had the occasional premature ventricular contraction (PVC). They were even caught on an EKG one time. They are usually not dangerous and mine elicited little more than a shrug from the doctors. I now take 250 mg of magnesium oxide (available over the counter) daily and it has reduced the PVCs probably 90%.

I agree with Gollnick about consulting a cardiologist. The echo stress test is quite an experience. You crank up your heart rate on a treadmill and then have an echocardiogram while you are sucking wind and they are requesting things like "OK - just hold your breath for a few seconds now." :D I had a nuclear medicine version of it where I cranked it up and they injected some dye and then did a nuclear imaging. I was fortunate and it was comforting to have the evidence that I had no structural or organic problems with my ticker at all.
 
Thanks for the responses. I'm going to get a holter monitor sometime this week. My health insurance is limited (i have part time insurance via Aetna vs the better, full time insurance of BC/BS thru my employer) and my primary care Doc office is helping me find the best deal on a 48 hr monitor and echo thingy. After those two tests, I will take all my test results (those two tests + blood + ekg + heart monitor results from ER) to a cardiologist to look it all over.
 
If you can go to urgent care/ambulatory care, it is cheaper than ER. If you don't know how to take your pulse, learn. Normal heart rate is 70-100. Unless you have heart problems, resting heart rate even into 120s is probably not an emergency. If your HR is getting into the 150s at rest, you should probably get seen. Any chest pain/pressure, shortness of breath, dizzyness/lightheadedness should send you to ER. A holter monitor is a fine idea. A few premature ventricular or atrial complexes (PVCs/PACs) are not abnormal. Did you doc check your electolytes (potassium, magnesium, phoshorus...)? Seeing a cardiologist isn't a bad idea, but it is going to cost you.
Don't blow it off, but if you are under 40, and don't have other medical conditions that predispose you to heart problems, you can probably relax a bit.
Of course, take all this with a grain of salt. Doing an accurate medical assessment on unknown people on Internet forums is near impossible.
 
Do you drink coffee? I had regular palpitations and a pounding (but not racing) heartbeat to go with it.

Went through the emergency room bit, echo, even a heart catheterization. No problems found. Wore a heart monitor, etc. Found no cause for my problems.

Finally, my Doc asked me about caffeine. I was drinking about 3-4 cups of coffee per day. Had been for many many years, while the heart issue had been bugging me only for about a year, but was getting worse.

Doc told me to give up caffeine 100%. I did and the problem lessened after about 3 weeks, eventually going away completely after about two months.
 
Not a caffeine problem. I only drink no caffeine pop and have never liked coffee or anything related to coffee. Never been a smoker either.
 
About 7 years ago (I would of been in my mid 40's) began having palpitations while on a backpacking trip. They were very disconcerting but produced no symptoms. They steadily increased in frequency over the next few days & weeks. An ekg showed uni-focal (one point of origin) pvc's that were occurring with alarming frequency. Every second (bi-gemini) or third (tri-gemini beats were pvcs & at times would last for anywhere from 10 to 50 minutes. Sometimes the frequency was only 5-6 per/minute. I would have these episodes 5-6 times a day when they were at there worst. They would occur at rest or when doing my cardio workouts. No activity seem to initiate them (or terminate them). I could determine no specific cause. I went the whole gamut ( thanks to a liberal heath plan from my employer) of test, 12 lead ekgs, holter monitor, echocardiogram, nuclear treadmills, standard treadmill. I saw a cardiologist followed my progress over a period of years. No physical anomalies found. Blood values my cardiologist envied. I could go months at a time & never felt a palpitation then suddenly episodes of bi-gemini & tri-gemini multiple times a day for days at a time. This can be very disconcerting. However at no time was I symptomatic. No chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, none. The only thing close to a symptom would be an urge to cough when the pvcs were really raging. I continued to do my cardio workouts (biking, nordic track, running) even when pvcs were very frequent & workouts were never effected by them. In short I & my cardiologist decided they were for all practical purposes, benign & warranted no intervention. Any intervention would have likely caused more problems then they would resolve. No ablation (electricaly "zapping" the focal point in the ventricles that produce the pvcs) no beta blockers or other meds. Just learn to live with them. Fortunately they have tapered off greatly over the last few years to the point of being quite rare.
As for coffee being a cause of palpitations...I believe there could have been a link. I did switch to decaf for quite a long time. But now that they are rare I drink regular as well as decaf at will with no apparent side effects. Pvcs can be dangerous especially if you are symptomatic. Pacs a little less so. Of course only a cardiologist should make the diagnosis of dangerous or benign. I simpy learned to live with them & did it without missing a stride if not some periods of great concern that I would suddenly go into ventricular tachycardia or fibbrilation. Still kickin at 52 & lovin every minute of it
Thats my story hope it was usefull.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top