Missed heartbeats!

[kestral]

got palps and missed beats yesterday when walking into town. it was slightly uphill and into the wind. these calmed down for a while but after a short rest came back. every time i went to sleep i woke up with more palps etc this carried on all night. the doc has told me its linked to an electrical impulse in my heart and it is benign. i now feel achy and uncomfortable.

[LeeBee]

Hi kestral, as your doc says, ectopics are caused by a little electrical misfiring of the nerve that controls your heart rhythm. I've seen it described as being like a "hiccup" or "sneeze" of the heart. I get them every day. Not normally during/after exercise, but I did have them at dance class the other day. Most recently, I woke up to go to the loo in the night, when I went back to bed I had some ectopics. Thanks, heart! I find them freaky too, I think pretty much everyone who is aware of them does find them at least a little disturbing. Your heart is so important, it's difficult not to feel worried when it does anything other than beat in a nice, steady rhythm. However, they are very common, almost always benign, like your doc says. Try not to worry .

[kestral]

having had those flips etc the other day i now find it difficult to convince myself to go out as i dont like the idea of feeling the same. i have arranged to see a concert tonight and a football match tomorrow, both about 80 miles from home. now im getting symptons, probably due to the stress. dont even like the idea of taking the dog for a walk either.

[jodie]

hiya

just wanted to ask do any of you get more ectopics when you have flu or cold
i have had these dam ectopics for years now and the last 2 years i have been doing much better with then ,but i have cold and last night i got them while i was trying to go to sleep this was a big thing for me years ago as i got ectopics worse at night found myself sitting up most the night for a long time which i know did not help

thanks
jodie xx

[Mikke]

Yes, it's common to have ectopics when your have the flu, especially when you have a fever.

It's really embarassing, but I have a veneric disease from my stupid youth, herpes, and whenever that one kicks in every three months or so I have lots of them as well.

Seems as if the body is struggling with infection, it affects the heart

[Piglet]

having had those flips etc the other day i now find it difficult to convince myself to go out as i dont like the idea of feeling the same. i have arranged to see a concert tonight and a football match tomorrow, both about 80 miles from home. now im getting symptons, probably due to the stress. dont even like the idea of taking the dog for a walk either.

The trouble is with 'flips' (as you call them) there isn't always any rhyme or reason for when they come and because of that they stand an equal chance of coming when you are not doing anything physical, or indeed when you are!!

When they come and we are doing something physical we immediately connect the two and then want to avoid whatever we were doing when they came. I once had them walking up a hill and from then onwards got scared to walk up hills and yet the silly thing was I was also getting them sat on the sofa watching tv!!

Eventually I decided the best thing to do would to be exercise regularly to try and keep fitter (I could still do more on this front ) and I got a little trampette thing to bounce on to raise my heart rate.

Meg (a super old time member on here) wrote a post once about trying to see the flips as no more annoying than a run of sneezes would be and that really helps me to keep things in perspective.

I wouldn't change your plans hun to do the things you've arranged - so many of us do this and then leave ourselves suffering with moderate agoraphobia (which is what happened with me over the past 8 years).

I now think to myself if I wait for the ectopics to stop before venturing out then I will be waiting a long time so I go out anyway. This has the bonus of giving me confidence of acheivement which has the knock on effect of lowering the anxiety, which has the knock on effect of lessening the ectopics .............. do you see the pattern!

It may not be easy at times but stick with it.

Piglet

[Suze1511]

Hi Piglet!

I just want to thank you for sharing your experience with heart irregularities. I just got back from having an ecg - normal but my missed heart beat didn't happen during the ecg anyway. Been having these for about 10 days. Starting to think it's all stress related but also have had tummy bug so at a low ebb aswell. It's really scarey when it happens - I don't actually notice the missed heart beat - just that the next beat seems to come back so strong and thats the one I notice. Was initially trying to ignore it but when my husband felt the missed beat when checking my pulse it really freaked me out. Have not slept properly since. Also have just self-checked my BP at docs and its 141/85 which is really high for me - am guessing this is adding to my stress. Reading yours and others entries on this site has helped my put it into perspective but wondered if anyone else felt that follow on beat really strongly and if this was a normal experience too? Also I'm really light headed but am now guessing this is due to BP, would appreciate any comments on this last BP related query too. Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.

[Piglet]

but wondered if anyone else felt that follow on beat really strongly and if this was a normal experience too?

Yes now that is exactly what I get - you put that into words very well!

I would say over the last 8 years these are the following sensations I get

1. A missed beat that can feel like a 'lurch' or dropping sensation.
2. Unevenly spaced beats feeling the follow on beat as an extra strong beat like a small punch.
3. Racing heart beat - beating faster than normal and making me feel het up.
4. Palpitations - a little run of fluttering heart beats.
5. Strong heart beats - not necessarily fast but just like I seem to be extra sensitive to every beat, so feel every beat etc.

I don't get all these symptoms at the same time thankfully lol and neither have I had them consistently over the last 8 years but when I do get a few weeks (or even months) of them at a time then they can take the form of any of the above.

Suze your blood pressure might be high for you hun but in the general scheme of things is still well in the normal ranges.

My BP always hits the roof when tested at the doctors (so they stopped doing it there and let me borrow a BP unit from the surgery to try at home - big success for me that was as it's always normal at home) until a few weeks ago when I had it done at the surgery and it was about 130/84 which for me at the surgery is brilliant. When I do it at home its always very nicely in the 120/80 range or lower.

Our BP fluctuates all through the day depending on what we are doing so that they always like to take the resting BP reading and would want to do that consistently over a period of time before deciding if someone did indeed have high BP or just the old 'white coat syndrome'.

Welcome to any of you that are new members to the site BTW!

Piglet

[Suze1511]

Once again thanks so much Piglet!!!!!!

Also, I wanted to add that your Piglet/Pooh quote coupled with your comments on this topic have helped me so much this week! Whenever I start to worry about stuff I imagine the scene in my head - along with Pooh's pause while he has 'careful thought'. The quote is so apt in its simplistic wisdom. (also helps as I'm a disney fan)

Thanks for sharing that. I wrote it on a piece of paper and it's on my computer desk.


Suze.

[Piglet]

You're very welcome mate.

The quote still does it for me too lol!

Piglet