Hi,

Not posted for a while as I thought I was 'on the mend', but kept popping in to see what has been happening, this site has been a great help to me in the past, and Im hoping someone can help me with something that has got me pretty scared today.

I have suffered with ectopics for a number of years now, and over the last couple of months I have been coping pretty well with them, letting them pass, carrying on as well as I can with normal life.  The main thing is that they are normally single 'skipped beats' with no racing or fast heart beat associated with it, the other thing I should say is that my heart has always in the past felt 'soft' (if that makes any sense) whilst I have a skipped beat, even the thump when it kicks back in is a soft thump.

Well last night I decided to take my wife and son out for a meal, and as I took my second sip of beer before the food came my heart went into a very weird rythm which I have never had before.  It felt like it was going into a skipped beat but didnt come back with the thump!  It carried on feeling like it wasnt beating for a good 10 seconds a which point I stood up and told my wife something was very wrong, I then paced to another chair in the room, sat down and then my heart beated fast (but not very fast) but VERY hard, it felt like it was beating against the my sternum and although not painfull, felt very uncomfortable to the point of nearly painfull, ie hard, not soft like normal.  I sat and remembered something someone once told me, take a full breath and hold it, which I did, and it did subside.  Lasted about a minute in all (although felt a lot longer), afterwards I was shaky and a bit emotional, but eventually calmed down.

This morning however I cant get it out of my head, this didnt feel normal, should I see a GP, or is it just a form of Palpitations Ive never had before. To be honest it scared me a lot.  Sorry for rambling, im still on edge this morning. Thanks for any advice.

Thanks

Stu

Thanks so much for your reply Kathryn,

Even though its not happened again, im really on edge today, it really felt different from my normal skipped beats, very scary.  

New symptons are not nice, just as you think your getting a handle on your problems, wham, another one thats worse comes over the hill to try and knock you down.

Thanks for showing me some empathy, its really hard to understand something that felt so physically intense could just be another type of palpitation!!  

I think I remember saying to my wife once It seemed to have passed 'WOW, what the b@@@dy H@ll was that!!' it was that overwhelming.

Thanks again for your response, I feel a little more relaxed now, I may still see my GP for his opinion, as it was something new out of the blue, and very scary.

Stu

Hi Stu,

Very common symptoms by the way and you did a very good job of explaining the incident. Under certain conditions, irritation of the Vagus nerve can be extended and the consequence via heart palpitations is described as more of a constant stumbling heartbeat, wherein patients can feel it in their throat and often try to cough in the attempt to disrupt the sensation. Panic is almost always present because of the extended nature of the palpitation.

The subsequent pounding heart is entirely normal and exists as the body's normal response to re-establish proper blood pressure, etc. You have to realize that the body has built-in sensors that become affected during some palpitation variants and swing into motion when changes in homeostasis occur.

You're going to be just fine. If it's of any further comfort, beverages with high carbonation content add pressure to an already sensitive GI tract that can trigger the Vagus nerve.

Best regards and Good Health