anybody here ever dealt with this....i am seriously considering going to a cardiologist....


http://www.medicinenet.com/arrhythmia_irregular_heartbeat/article.htm

9/17/2006 12:18:28 PM

"Arrhythmia" is too broad a thing to comment on.

9/17/2006 12:25:39 PM

at someone who nearly died of a heart problem at the tender age of 20, i think you should absolutely go visit a doctor soon. if it's something that's bothering you, the cost of the office visit is a small price to pay for piece of mind.

9/17/2006 1:04:04 PM

Sometimes I wake up and I have some sort of chest spasm. I'm not sure if its heart related, but I went to the doctor for it once before and they did an EKG (i think it's called that?).

I had a resting heartbeat of like 50 bpm, and no apparent problems. It's weird, i'll wake up and it FEELS like my heart is spazzing the fuck out. I'm more inclined to think it's a back muscle or a muscle in my ribcage, however, because I've checked my pulse during these spasms and it seems normal.

Anybody else have that go on?

9/17/2006 1:26:11 PM

^ i know my heart palpatates when you're around

i dont think a doctor can help me though

9/17/2006 2:02:41 PM

OH SHIT

9/17/2006 2:16:47 PM

sublime_ncsu, definitely go get it checked out. if it's nothing, it's worth the money you paid for the doctor's appointment (if you have to pay for anything, idk how insurance is for you).

when i was in third grade, i had to have open heart surgery b/c of a hole in my heart. it was a process that had no follow-up needs, like replacing the patch down the road, etc. but, when i was a senior in hs, i started noticing trouble with my breathing. i had some asthma when i was younger, but got over it, so i thought that might just be the problem. i went to my regular doc, and she kept giving me all these different asthma treatments. it never worked, and finally she thought about sending me to a cardiologist. i did have an arrhythmia, caused from scar tissue from the surgery. it was about a ten year time difference, and the cardiologist said this is the one thing they've seen come with the heart surgery i had. i know your history may not be as complicated as mine, but get it looked at. i had it taken care of with a surgery that was not invasive; they went through two veins in my thighs and did it via laser. it was an ablation of the scar tissue though.

anyway, a lot of words, but i just wanted to basically say: Go get it looked at.

9/17/2006 2:20:22 PM

this has happened to me a total of 3 times now.....i have like an irregular heart beat that is too fast and offbeat...it makes me feel as if i am going to pass out and my body temp goes up.....it will last a few hours and i will be fine.....

9/17/2006 2:58:56 PM

a few hours??


go to the doctor. You don't fuck around with heart problems.

9/17/2006 3:06:04 PM

if i just get up and move around some like i did this morning it will go away...fuck....

9/17/2006 3:12:04 PM

cardiologist may give you a monitor to wear for a couple days/weeks that constantly logs your EKG. like a pager with electrodes glued to your chest. When feel something weird happening, you hit a button and it makes a notation, so when they download the logs, they know where to look.

most likely will tell you to get more rest & less caffeine. don't know anyone who has ever listened to that advice

9/17/2006 4:17:27 PM

darwin^

9/17/2006 4:18:29 PM

Might be atrial fibrillation. http://www.a-fib.com/

9/17/2006 4:43:08 PM

In the short term, buy some magnesium pills

I was told by a doctor that magnesium plays a critical role in carrying the messages from your brain to your heart, and things like drinking and stress can deplete your magnesium and cause erratic heartbeat.

I used to have a problem myself with this, and the magnesium supplements I take have helped to curtail it quite noticeably.

9/17/2006 5:20:24 PM

but I would recommend going to a doctor too.

9/17/2006 5:21:09 PM

Go to the doctor. This happens fairly regularly in lots of people, and most of the time is benign. From too much caffeine, stress, not enough potassium, etc. Some people can't even tell when their heartbeat is irregular. But better to be safe than sorry.


I started dealing with intermittent heartbeat irregularities last september, including early beats and very strong beats, and episodes of tachycardia and lightheadedness. Took more than two months before my doctors finally found the tumor right smack in the middle of my brain that was pushing on my brainstem. But I had a lot of other problems stemming from this going on as well, not just my heartbeat issues.

9/17/2006 5:22:58 PM

I have mitral valve prolapse and sometimes my heart rate goes nuts if I do something suddenly, am really stressed, or am sleep deprived.

Here's a few things you can do:
http://health.yahoo.com/topic/flu/resources/article/healthwise/ps1283

I do this with a combination of getting fresh air and drinking cold water if I can't get my heart rate to slow in a quick amount of time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valsalva_maneuver

See a doctor though before you go and try anything!!! I've been doing this for years, but I also have a specialist I see every other year and get MRI's when I do.

9/17/2006 5:23:01 PM

yeah i've had chest tweaks before that feel like heart stuff, but nothing ever really happened.

ECG = EKG

one is the german original acronym and the other is the english version

9/17/2006 5:24:59 PM

chickenmcshithead are you having bad dreams, that sounds like panic attack to me. I AM A DOCTOR TRUST ME. ha ha. but i had a friend once that said his panic attacks felt like that.

9/17/2006 6:08:41 PM

One of my chinchillas has a heart murmur. So does my mother. No biggy, just something to monitor.

9/17/2006 7:57:09 PM

^^ Maybe? I have a lot of anxiety. I drink caffiene though, so that can't help either.

9/17/2006 8:02:02 PM

Go see Dr. Sam Mobarek in Cary. He is the best in this area related to heart rhythm issues. This is his specialty and he is a darn good doc and a nice guy.

9/17/2006 8:53:21 PM

go to the dr. the "side effects" from untreated arrythmias .......aside from death can be pretty debilitating.


id be happy to explain some of these side effects, but im certainly not typing all of it.



and dont fuck around with magnesium, if your doctor wants you on magnesium for a heart problem he will tell you exactly how much to take, how long to take and he will want follow up labs to check your serum magnesium

[Edited on September 17, 2006 at 10:13 PM. Reason : .]


goddamn there is some ill advised advice in here.


1st when it comes to heart issues, dont listen to anybody without MD or OD behind their name.
2nd a good RN will tell you to go get a cardiology consult. -- just like i am saying get a cardiology consult.


Ive seen/heard of some serious shit happening from a valsava maneuver. Cardiac patients who strain to take a shit after being stented or are recovering from an MI very often go into Ventricular tachycardia which can quickly become Ventricular fibrillation........and then comes asystole.

so an unsupervised vasava maneuver aint a good idea.

[Edited on September 17, 2006 at 10:17 PM. Reason : x]

9/17/2006 10:11:47 PM

^ That's why I said:

Quote :

"See a doctor though before you go and try anything!!!"

Durrrh.

9/17/2006 10:28:30 PM

Quote :

"i have like an irregular heart beat that is too fast and offbeat...it makes me feel as if i am going to pass out and my body temp goes up"

That happens to me any time that I get a shot. It never happened to me until the day that a nurse gave me 3 shots right in a row, and since then whenever I get any shots I start to feel like that.

I don't know the cause or if it's related to what you've experienced, but drinking lots of cold water seems to help.

9/17/2006 10:58:36 PM

sounds like anxiety to me. I do the same thing with shots. When I don't run or work out for a while and things get stressfull the same thing happens to me.

9/17/2006 11:03:12 PM

^ it's weird because I'm not actually anxious about shots....my body just freaks out in reaction to them

9/17/2006 11:14:50 PM

Go to doctor. First thing tomorrow. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

9/17/2006 11:17:29 PM

As a warning, it is sometimes very difficult to detect these things.

I have no idea what I have (closest term is tachycardia (sp?)). Occasionally, my heart will just completely go out of whack. It will typically be very fast and be very strong (you can see my heartbeat through undershirt, shirt, and coat). I have counted it as being as high as 200 but it is typically a bit lower. It has been happening for me ever since elementary school, used to be once a month or so, now it is more like 2x a year. I have gone to many specialists, had EKG's at every doctor appointment, X-rays, etc with no diagnosis ever officially made.

Basically what I was told was that unless it was something from heart complications (ie scar tissue or other physical problems) it was something that would have to be diagnosed on occurance. IE you would have to be wearing a special monitoring device when it occurred.

I definitely reccommend seeing a doctor about it though. And here are a few tips to get rid of the Arrhythmia if your's is similar to mine.

1. Lay belly down on a HARD flat surface (IE floor, not bed)
2. Breath very slowly and deeply (full inhales)

This is the method I have found to work best for me. Before this, I had episodes last for typically 30 minutes, but they could last for hours. Now, I can kill the arrhythmia within a minute typically.

If this doesn't work, also try to slowly drink some water then repeat the process above. Whatever you do, don't let the episode last longer than it needs to.

[Edited on September 18, 2006 at 1:39 PM. Reason : .]

9/18/2006 1:34:25 PM

i'm in your chest

slappin' your heart

9/18/2006 1:44:29 PM

I used to have the same problem during my junior year in high school. I ended up going to the ER one night when it was really bad and they had no clue what was going on. I was setting off alarms right and left when my heart rate got to 204 bpm.

To make a long story short, I ended up getting sent to a cardiologist who diagnosed me with Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT), thus leading to two heart surgeries through a process called catheter ablation (2 times because the doctor didn't get it right the first time.

SVT is caused by a couple different things. In my case, it was an abnormal electrode connection in my heart. In generic terms, most electrodes link the top and bottom of the heart, providing the 2 beats you feel normally. This mutated one looped from the top back to the top.

The trigger for the arrhythmia is what they called "starter beats," which happen regularly in stages of growth (puberty, adolescence, etc..) and will continue to occur for most of your life. In any other person, starter beats are overlooked. In someone with SVT, they cause arrhythmias and can be quite annoying.

An important question is: Do you feel light-headed after or during your arrhythmia? If yes, you need to seek a doctor quickly. If no, like in my case, the doctor gave me the option of fixing it or living with it because it doesn't affect blood flow or delivery of oxygen to the body. However, he did tell me that it could wear out my heart faster if I lived with it longer, and that it could lead to a few scares later in life, making me think it was the beginning of a heart attack.

I hope that helps some. Good luck.

9/18/2006 3:09:53 PM

If it is a-fib, then only an EKG can tell. and if it is a-fib you could develop a clot in your atria which could lead to a stroke or a pulmonary embolus..... a-fib requires medication to manage.


whether its a-fib or paroxsysmal SVT or just anxiety a doctor will be able to diagnose and more importantly treat you better than any advice on here

9/18/2006 4:44:56 PM

wow, these heart condition stories at such a young age scare the shit out of me

9/18/2006 4:54:07 PM

go before you'll asystole

9/18/2006 5:23:31 PM

^^^^ I had the same exact thing and had the ablation last december....that's so funny. I thought I was the only person I'd ever know who had an extra electrode. Who was your doctor, btw? I saw Dr. Gillam at Duke.

Pretty much it sucked. I started getting episodes in late highschool (~2000) and was misdiagnosed a few times. My worst episode was pretty crazy. I was working at On the Border and it was cinco de mayo so we were pretty busy. In the middle of my shift the arrythmia started and I went through all of the motions to get it to stop...all the valsava maneuvers I could remember. Straining, vomitting, putting my face in ice cold water. Normally a good strain was all I needed but this time every thing I tried made it worse. A customer I was waiting on actually took me to the hospital. When I got there I didn't have to wait around for shit, like you normally do. My heart was clocked at 248 and shit was getting real. It wasn't slowing down and I was really really scared so finally I got a nice shot of adenosine which chemically stops and resets your heart. The whole process of the injection was pretty wild in itself. Apparently your body absorbs it very quickly so they had to shoot it very hard and very fast into a vein in my arm so that it reached my heart before it was absorbed. That was the most intense feeling ever, not to mention that it's a pretty "cool" thing to see. I had the whole ER staff in the room when it happened. It did the trick though and everything returned to normal. I soon made an appointment with at the Duke Cardiology clinic and on the very first visit I was correctly diagnosed. The thought of surgery scared the shit out of me so I opted not to until I was in the ER again a year later. Had the surgery in December and I've been pretty okay since.

so yeah, go see a doctor. Your heart is really nothing you want to screw around with.

9/18/2006 7:04:47 PM

yeah, the catheter ablation technique was what i had. i had it done at wake forest, and had some issues with the anesthia, and other shit. the actual process went VERY well. but if you only have one good vein, don't let them take blood from that arm earlier in the day. they had to try about, um, 10 different veins (at the least) before they got my anesthia started.

anyway, sorry, medical rants. but if you're an otherwise healthy (i.e. not obese, etc), a process like that isn't such a big deal.

9/18/2006 7:18:02 PM

Quote :

"i am seriously considering going to a cardiologist.... "

Something tells me that if your heart is acting all fucked up, you should go to a cardiologist and not thinkg about it.

9/18/2006 9:46:46 PM

yes yes, adenosine is a very freaky very cool drug........ causes a few seconds of asystole

9/19/2006 12:32:46 AM