I've had weird palpitations on and off for a few years now. From what I've read, and the GPs guess, I'm having ectopic beats.She won't refer me as we've never caught an event on a monitor and she listened to my heart and said it sounded ok. (*Edit, as future posts might be confusing otherwise - Never caught an event tied to this specific drop feeling, but have caught ectopics and fast hr that I didn't feel) She thinks I am experiencing a skipped beat, but I'm wondering if she feels I'm overdramatising the symptoms. I'm really not.
The sensation I feel is really, really intense. Not the kind you could ignore or miss. All I keep getting told is that lots of people have ectopic beats and most don't feel them because they're not anxious.
There's no way on earth this is a sensation that I'm too focused on.
Basically, what I feel is a HUGE drop feeling in my chest. It's like my heart is suddenly free falling. I can't catch my breath when it happens. It's extremely intense. This drop feeling lasts maybe 1-4 seconds, and it feels like my heart is being squeezed/is fluttering/or stopped. My throat will feel like its tightening too. Then, I'll feel a hard thump. Sometimes I don't feel the thump, and there's a second drop feeling straight after the first. I can only guess it's two ectopics in a row. It genuinely feels like my heart will never start again I feel all shaky after it happens, especially if there is more than one in a row.
I managed to feel my pulse while one was happening this morning, and there was a pause/faint beat then huge beat. It's the first time I've actually felt my pulse when one happened. It didn't make me feel any better as I was hoping it was just a muscle spasm.
They don't happen frequently, maybe once every couple of months or so. I often forget about them until they happen again out of the blue.
Also really worried about the dreaded ventricular tachycardia. Yep the sudden death one. Would a holter monitor pick up signs of that even if I didn't have symptoms while wearing it?
If anybody reads this and feels the same sensation, please tell me, because I'm getting really scared of these. I only seem to find a lot of people talking about milder sensations. I've had the milder sensations, like tiny pauses and thumps and flutters, and I ignore them pretty well. But the ones I'm talking about are definitely a different feeling. It would just be comforting to know that others had the same intense ones I'm having. It's such a hard thing to describe.