Palpitations and missed heart beats – What should I do?
The heart is truly an amazing ultra-athlete that from a few weeks old embryo keeps on beating for decades and, in many cases, more than a century.
This is all achieved without any effort on our part - a totally automatic system. Every beat of the heart (which is composed of billions of cells) is initiated by an electrical impulse that is generated from a small area (sino-atrial node) within the heart. That electrical impulse then spreads out, activating every one of those heart cells to contract and cause a heartbeat.
For the most part, an electrical impulse occurs approximately once every second, giving a heart rate of around 60-70 per minute. Each of those billion plus cells is also able to generate an electrical impulse. If one cell outside of the sino-atrial node produces an impulse, an extra beat or sometimes several in a row is produced.
Extra heartbeats
We all experience extra heartbeats occasionally and this is a normal human and heart phenomenon. Generally, we are unaware of these extra beats but occasionally, and more often in woman, the extra beats are felt. The descriptions vary: a fluttering in the chest, a forceful beat, a missed beat, or the feeling that a person’s heart has ‘jumped’ out of their chest. A slight feeling of shortness of breath may be associated.
These extra beats are totally benign and do not cause any damage to the heart or to a person’s general health and well being – we ALL go through this. Many of us sometimes experience short periods when we seem to feel these extra beats but most often they go away by themselves, perhaps to reoccur months or years later. Stress and anxiety may be a precipitating factor.
What to do
If you feel you are having palpitations or missed beats, see your doctor immediately. He may consider testing for causes of irregular heartbeats, which may include an ECG, blood tests, a holter monitor, an ultrasound of the heart and a stress test. If all these turn out to be normal then everything you have read above most likely relates to you and you simply have benign extra beats.
Reassurance of your heart health, despite the palpitations, is often the best medicine.
