Posted 10/15/2015 1:32 AM (GMT 0)
Hi everyone!
I've had heart palpitations for as long as I can remember, and they go through periods of severity. If I go through a period of stress or over-activity (not enough rest), or poor nutrition, I start to get heart beats skipping.
This year I had a severe primary onset of ulcerative colitis. It's now in remission so there's no problem there. However, I bring it up because I lost a lot of weight and became anemic, requiring several blood transfusions.
My heart was tested with an ECG in the hospital, but the test lasted for only a couple of minutes and didn't seem very comprehensive. That was during a time when I had an irregular, irregular heartbeat (an irregular heartbeat that's not predictable). My MD was so concerned she sent me to the ER, but then the ECG turned up "normal" so I don't really understand why the test was so inaccurate. As far as I know that was the worst episode of heart irregularity in my life and felt like I was going to have a heart attack. It's frustrating that modern medicine keeps telling you that you're "normal" when things don't feel that way. My heart is current in a good state, I feel, but it still skips a beats regularly.
I've read all the superficial literature on this and it's considered "normal" for most people to have this issue, but I am concerned that there could be a deeper problem. I've taken the herb hawthorne in tincture form long-term and it corrected things really well, including the electrical activity. But still, there's palpitations...
I tend to have lower BP than the average person so my heart may have to work harder, and I'm tall (6'4" / 192cm) which is part of a higher incidence of cardiovascular issues in general.
I would really like these palpitations to stop though. Whenever a single palpitation happens, I get a very small, brief lack of oxygen to my brain. It's such a small amount that it doesn't impede my life, but I'm aware of it. During periods where the palpitations are a lot more frequent, the deficit adds up.
Anyone have experience with this? I don't really know how to proceed to find out more, and I'm not willing to do something invasive like get angiogram. Besides I'm not sure my doctor thinks this problem is serious enough to warrant that level of investigation -- but I don't have peace of mind about this.