Skipped Heart Beats

[TheMojoPin]

for a few years now I've been getting what feel like heart "jumps" where it feels like my heart skips a beat. Sometimes it's just once or barely noticeable and sometimes it's a bunch right in a row and I can't miss them. They are never accompanied with any pain or shortness of breath or dizziness and whatnot, and seem to show up when I'm stressed or have a few drinks (never get them when exercising). I've mentioned them to my doctor a couple times and he says it's nothing since it's not accompaied by any other symptoms and he believs that they're stress-induced (hence why I don't get them or notice them when working out and releasing tension). I've done research into on my own and the info I've seen seems to back him up and that these are far more common than I thought. I guess I'm looking for a second professional opinion here...what do you think?

[Dr Steve]

Dr. Steve, sort of related question...for a few years now I've been getting what feel like heart "jumps" where it feels like my heart skips a beat. Sometimes it's just once or barely noticeable and sometimes it's a bunch right in a row and I can't miss them. They are never accompanied with any pain or shortness of breath or dizziness and whatnot, and seem to show up when I'm stressed or have a few drinks (never get them when exercising). I've mentioned them to my doctor a couple times and he says it's nothing since it's not accompaied by any other symptoms and he believs that they're stress-induced (hence why I don't get them or notice them when working out and releasing tension). I've done research into on my own and the info I've seen seems to back him up and that these are far more common than I thought. I guess I'm looking for a second professional opinion here...what do you think?

What you're experiencing sounds like "palpitations"...which are, as you suggested, the result of "skipped beats" or "premature ventricular contractions" (PVCs).

What happens is this: your heart beats around 70 times a minute and there are a shitload of minutes in a day. It's amazing the damned thing doesn't skip more often! Anyway, every once in awhile, you'll have a beat that comes earlier than expected. This causes a pause in the heartbeat while the heart resets itself. Thing is, blood continues to flow in from the veins, so the heart gets overfilled with blood. As soon as the electrical system reboots (takes less than a second), the heart starts pumping like crazy to get all that extra blood out of the ventricles, and you feel palpitations. Most of the time this lasts for only a second or two. Anything that lasts for longer than that may actually be a run of abnormal beats, and that's a different animal.

Palpitations are, in the absence of other heart disease, considered benign; everyone has them every day but only a few people notice them or experience them. As a matter of fact, people in great shape (like athletes) have more "skipped beats" than the normal population.

If they ever start really driving you crazy, there are medications that can help. Your doctor would probably have you wear a monitor that records every beat for a day to make sure he/she isn't missing something important.

Let me know if you need/want to know more!

[TheMojoPin]

Thanks Dr. Steve!

My doctor put me on beta blockers to see if that would take care of things, and it did for the most part, but seeing as there weren't signs of anything else I opted to not spend the money on an ongoing prescription for them.

I sorta figured it wasn't too bad when working out and exercising made them go away and me feel better as opposed to making things worse.

[itr]

Palpitations are, in the absence of other heart disease, considered benign; everyone has them every day but only a few people notice them or experience them.

Steve, I get these quite a bit as well, but I also have a heart murmur (VSD to be specific).. have had it since birth, and I usually only have to get it checked out every 1 or 2 years, although with a loss of health insurance I haven't been back in over 3 years. So these kind of things really worry me sometimes; should they?

[Dr Steve]

Steve, I get these quite a bit as well, but I also have a heart murmur (VSD to be specific).. have had it since birth, and I usually only have to get it checked out every 1 or 2 years, although with a loss of health insurance I haven't been back in over 3 years. So these kind of things really worry me sometimes; should they?

Well, I need a little more information to answer that question...what was the status of your VSD at last check? Are the pressures and sizes of the ventricles normal? Did it close as you were growing up (which most of the small ones do)?

To get everyone on the same page, a VSD is a "ventricular septal defect". This is an opening in the wall between the right and left ventricles that is present at birth. They occur in 4 out of 10,000 births and are the most common of the inborn heart defects. Large ones require surgery, small ones usually close up as the child grows.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Ventricular_septal_defect.svg/606px-Ventricular_septal_defect.svg.png

If yours is still open (which it probably is, if you have a heart murmur), you do need to get it checked periodically. The main problem with these things is if they're big enough to cause screwed up pressures in the heart. Really small ones don't have the ooomph to shunt much blood from the left to the right so they can just be followed over time. You probably have already been told that you need to take antibiotics when seeing the dentist, etc. You can certainly have palpitations and a VSD, but I doubt the VSD is contributing too much to the skipped beats (though it's a good question for your cardiologist).

Here's a pretty exhaustive article on VSD: http://www.emedicine.com/RADIO/topic740.htm

Good luck, hope this helps



steve

[angrymissy]

I have a very slight murmur as well and get the skip, pound hard, gurgle beat that scares the crap out of me. I wore a halter monitor for a day and they did not find anything serious. I've got an Ativan script just for this because sometimes I freak out over it when it happens, an Ativan under the tongue works nicely in that case.

[EliSnow]

for a few years now I've been getting what feel like heart "jumps" where it feels like my heart skips a beat. Sometimes it's just once or barely noticeable and sometimes it's a bunch right in a row and I can't miss them. They are never accompanied with any pain or shortness of breath or dizziness and whatnot, and seem to show up when I'm stressed or have a few drinks (never get them when exercising). I've mentioned them to my doctor a couple times and he says it's nothing since it's not accompaied by any other symptoms and he believs that they're stress-induced (hence why I don't get them or notice them when working out and releasing tension). I've done research into on my own and the info I've seen seems to back him up and that these are far more common than I thought. I guess I'm looking for a second professional opinion here...what do you think?

I'm no doctor, but I'd bet this is a symptom of being a Cubs fan.

[TheMojoPin]

I'm no doctor, but I'd bet this is a symptom of being a Cubs fan.

Sadly, that just results in a broken heart.

[Dr Steve]

Sadly, that just results in a broken heart.

Ain't it the truth? Ain't it the truth?

I learned how to swear by listening to my dad and my big brother yelling at the tee vee (or yelling at the Cubs in person at Wrigley Field) when I was a kid. My brother used to take me to Cubs games; we'd get behind Jack Brickhouse in the booth and scare the crap out of him with this airhorn my brother bought (we were real suburban hayseeds). Memories like that made me a Cubs fan forever, but it is a curse more than anything else.

[TheMojoPin]

Dr. Steve is a Cubs fan??!

Hot damn, what a man!