Feelings of skipped heartbeats

[annoyed707104]

All, for the past day I have been experiencing a single stronger than normal heartbeat, several times an hour. There is no accompanying increase in heart rate after said beat, just a "flub" out of the blue and then immediately back to normal. Pulse is right at 60, although i can't say what the BP is. I have felt these off and on for several years, and in fact three years ago a couple occurred during a stress test. The Doc explained this as either PAC or PVC, I can't remember. I guess the issue is how the stronger heartbeat feels now compared to then (and the increased frequency). The feeling during the stronger beat is something like intense butterflies, and that feeling lingers for a while. Even when i feel the stronger beat, how strongly I feel it varies. The frequency is inconsistent, and I might not feel one for an hour or so or several within a half hour.

As far as my stats, nearly 45, 185lbs., drink couple of cups of coffee in the am and a couple of beers in the pm. I am prone to anxiety, and it can really mess with my body physically. Is this a case where I initially felt one strong beat and subsequently have been dwelling on that, essentially falling into the loupe of anxiety being the cause of this experience? Here it is 1am as I type this - sort of halfway fell asleep bot woke up to heart "flubs". Joined this group recently and posted to the forum, maybe just to write this down and get it off my mind...

[trus75]

That's some PVCs/PACs, i'm 99% sure. And yes they are random, I have them for more than 20 years, I can feel only one in 24 hours, I can feel more than 30 in one hour, more than 20 in 5 minutes with fast heart rate, bigeminy (every other beat a PVC), whatever you can imagine. Sometimes I am free of PVCs for months, but they always come back, usually with a different pattern. Anxiety makes them worse for sure and for some people there are other triggers. If you can reduce the amount of alcohol and coffee that you take per day, maybe you will feel less PVCs, but that's not a rule for everyone. But I think anxiety is indeed a rule. More anxiety = more frequent PVCs / PACs

[annoyed707104]

Thanks for letting me know about your experience, trus. Since I posted, the occurrence and strength of beats has been incredibly variable. Most of yesterday I hardly had (felt?) any. Today they have. Been more common, and within the last hour I've had four or five "good-sized" ones. Is there any information that explains this? If the beats were related to a valve problem or issue with the electical system, would there be a more regular pattern?

[trus75]

Thanks for letting me know about your experience, trus. Since I posted, the occurrence and strength of beats has been incredibly variable. Most of yesterday I hardly had (felt?) any. Today they have. Been more common, and within the last hour I've had four or five "good-sized" ones. Is there any information that explains this? If the beats were related to a valve problem or issue with the electical system, would there be a more regular pattern?


From what I read online (and I've read pretty much everything about PVCs), the answer is no. People who suffer from a heart disease will have PVCs, in some cases very frequent ones. But the vast majority of people who have PVCs have completely normal hearts. As for the "regular pattern", there are thousands of "normal" people who have bigeminy almost in a daily basis. And there are some people who have 50,000+ PVCs a day!! Just one more number for you: about 70% of people aged 40+ will show at least one ectopic beat in a 24H EKG. But 99% of them won't feel it. We are the 1% unlucky ones.

Try to see things like this: People with a brain disease will probably have severe headache (in most of cases). Does it mean that all people who have headache suffer from a brain disease?

From what you describe here, I can't see anything special. I mean, I know hundreds of cases like yours, including myself and we are still here after many years, with completely normal hearts. But if you want to be sure, and once you are 45 (almost the same as me, good age for a check up ;) ), I'd suggest that you have basic tests like blood test, a stress test, a echo, or maybe a Holter. They are all easy tests, except the Holter which is a little annoying (using the device for 24h). The best thing you can do is to talk to your doctor and explain what you feel. I doubt he will be concerned, but even if he's not, try to ask for those exams, so you can be more relaxed about it ;)

[annoyed707104]

Just want to say that I really hate the "flub" feeling on the extra heartbeat. Went four days with maybe on three or four that whole time, but now 5 or 6 within the last half hour.

[annoyed707104]

Ugh, four days with almost no palpitations. Now i'm on the forum at midnight after having been woken up by them. I don't know that i actually got into a sleep rythm, or istead have tossed and turned with palps while half asleep. Have woken up to the sensation of falling, but waking up with palpitations is a new feeling. Anyone else experience this?

[trus75]

I don't, but lots of people do. as I said before, I think you should ask for A Holter if you are too concerned about them, but the probability of having something "bad" is very small in my opinion.

[annoyed707104]

Trus, sounds like you've got a lot of knowledge regarding palpitations. The holter didn't show anything the last time I had one three hears ago, but seems like one would now given their frequency lately. One thing with a holter - if it doesn't pick anything up but you feel like you've had a palpitation, does that mean you didn't really have a palpitation (some kind of other muscle spasm)?

[trus75]

Yes, the Holter is usually very reliable. They will only consider your results valid if the quality of register is satisfactory, so it's almost impossible that you have premature beats and the Holter won't catch it.. If you think the Holter is not enough, you can ask for an event monitor, it's a little different because it will not record your rhythm all the time and you can use for a long period of time. depending on the model, it can record automatically when it detects an abnormal rhythm or it can be manually activated by you to record something that you feel