r/Heartpalpitations

My girlfriend (20) recently got diagnosed with a heart problem that I still don't understand the details of. I remember she said football players have "dropped dead" from this and she can't workout much, with a lifting limit of 50 lbs. She also said she's at risk of cardiac arrest. She's terrified and has no one to really talk to who gets it. How can I best comfort her (besides "I'm so sorry" and "I can't imagine what you're going through")?

Does anyone else get the most intense palpitations? Almost like an electric current splits through your entire body for the slightest second? Or in the middle of talking? It literally takes your breath away? I’ve had a Holter monitor and they said my palpitations are benign and that I just have an extra heart beat? They’ve been wayyyyyyy more frequent recently. Give me your stories! I wanna know I’m not alone.

Every single night within ten minutes of laying down, my heart starts skipping, thudding, and fluttering. It does this off and on for hours. The only relief I can find is to sleep sitting up. I'm so exhausted. Recently went to the ER because of it. They did an EKG and full CT of my heart and neck (checking carotid due to hearing heartbeat in my ear). Everything came back normal, aside some minor iron deficiency anemia, which I'm addressing with supplements. Had a recent echocardiogram and am supposed to get a chemical stress test, which I'm absolutely terrified to do. I've rescheduled it twice due to panic. Doc never called me with anything about the echo, so I'm assuming it was fine. Anyway, I just don't know what to do. I take my daily iron and magnesium. I take pepcid morning and night. I'm obese, but working on that with Zepbound and exercise and have lost 50lbs so far. How do I make this stop so I can sleep?

hello! i, 22f, have been recently been getting heart palpitations. (they started about two or three weeks ago.) at first, it was just some small, kinda painful, palpitations that would jolt my body. it was always between 10pm to 12am then once it would stop, i could sleep. but now, over the past couple of days, its been getting very bad. now it happens when i exercise, walking at work, or just sitting/standing. i went to see my pcp and he ordered a halter monitor and i get that on monday.

last night was the worst. it felt like fluttering, it was causing me to jolt, and it was painful. i was dizzy and had some chest pain but not enough to see the er. i eventually was able to sleep once i laid on my back and put my hand over my heart. i am extremely scared. i quit smoking weed a couple of weeks ago bc i started getting signs of chs again. i am a nicotine smoker so any advice quitting that would also be helpful. what are some things that can help me until monday? i have health anxiety so i try not to go on google because i will spiral and have a panic attack which then causes the heart palpitations to get worse. im so tired. im scared to sleep.

(to add, i did go to the er this past sunday to make sure i wasn’t having a heart attack or anything. everything was normal.)

I’ve been dealing with bad palpitations over the last 2 months after not having them for over 10 years.

Went to talk to my PCP and after a long discussion I was put on Buspirone and a heartburn medication. Within 4 days my palpitations have reduced by over 70% and I can actually lay down without constantly feeling a hard thump in my chest.

I’ll keep you all updated over the next month!

So it feels like a thump..

One beat thump

And it happens when I'm alone in bed

It happened weeks ago but now it happened twice today

I'm generally a anxious person though I think I feel more anxious after that thump happen I get hyperaware about everything in my body Please can anyone guide me through this

Please comment what your heart palpitations feel like. Mine are like a thump in my chest. Like someone punching the inside of my chest. Sometimes they are violent.

I get a lightheaded feeling after and an intense rush of anxiety.

I’m a 39-year-old female and started getting heart palpitations around age 37 after going through a very traumatic family situation that ended in estrangement. Since then, I’ve basically been stuck in constant fight-or-flight mode. My symptoms range from palpitations every few seconds, flipping/fluttering sensations, hard thuds, and episodes of fast heart rate. My nervous system rarely feels calm anymore.

For the longest time, I assumed this was all caused by stress, grief, anxiety, and being mentally stuck in the situation.

A few weeks ago, I randomly started eating fermented foods daily like sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, miso soup, etc. Within days, my palpitations completely stopped. My anxiety and depression disappeared too. I felt emotionally resilient, mentally calm, grateful, and genuinely happy for the first time in years. It honestly felt like my cortisol/nervous system had finally balanced out.

This lasted about 3 weeks.

Then suddenly, despite continuing all the fermented foods, everything came back. The palpitations, anxiety, adrenaline feeling, thought loops - all of it. Now my heart won’t settle again no matter how much fermented food I eat.

I eat very little sugar, don’t consume caffeine or stimulants, I eat healthy amounts of protein/fiber, fruits and vegetable’s and my bloodwork is normal except for low vitamin D and B12, which I already supplement.

Has anyone experienced something similar with fermented foods helping temporarily and then suddenly stopping? I’m trying to understand what could explain such a dramatic improvement followed by a complete relapse.

I broke up with my girlfriend of 3 years on March 30 I may have had a panic attack not sure. I was using topical minoxidil and then after I started zyrtec(not Zyrtec d) for the first time. I have been lifting for a while and taking creatine as well. It was like my heart started ramping up. While I was taking the Zyrtec. I only took 3 days but by the 4th day my heart was beating so strong and having palpitations. No lightheadedness or shortness of breath. Some chest discomfort. I then stopped all of that no lifting and went home for a week. It improved a ton. I come back and at the time thought the cause was something else so I started Zyrtec minoxidil and lifting. I only got through 2 days of Zyrtec same thing heart rate not slowing at night and palps. I stopped everything again. But I was dumb and went out with friends( no alcohol) and then played soccer the next day. I felt really fatigue for some days after. That was 2.5 weeks ago. The beats are nowhere near as strong or frequent. The beats are now directly correlated to how well I sleep, stress, and if I am physically active. After much thought and research. I believe I created the perfect storm that shot my nervous system. My body is now super sensitive to adrenaline or overproducing it which is why my heart feels fine working out but then afterwards I notice the beats and my heart rate won’t lower until late in the night asleep.
How can I reverse this and recover! I want my body to turn off adrenaline or become less sensitive and be able to switch to parasympathetic mode. I’ve been trying cold water to the face, breathing techniques humming etc.
I’ve been active my whole life and never had this. My opinion is that everything else was the wood and Zyrtec was the match so to speak.

What do your skipped beats feel like? I get like a flutter and then a THUMP in my chest. It sometimes take my breath away. When I feel my pulse it will literally have a pause inbetween. I had an ecga few years ago, and was fine. I’ve also had 2 pregnancies in 5 years and had no issues. I have health anxiety so anythjnf to do with my heart is a huge trigger!! I don’t get any pressure in chest or anything, sometimes it’ll feel like a sharp feeling for a second after the THUMP. Just looking to hear other people’s experiences really, and any advice. They are also triggered by things like caffeine, cold weather, cold drinks, panic, gas (like I need to burp), talking too fast. Etc. TIA!

to start, i do have POTS, however i just finished my first week of zepbound at 2.5 mg. the first two nights of it i woke up with a resting heart rate of 120 while laying in bed. i was able to get it down with water and a cool compress.

my question is: has anyone else experienced this and would it be safe to administer my next dose?

So I've had palpitations for almost two weeks now. Sometimes to the point where it's almost every 4th beat. I've had Afib in the past and had an ablation for it about a decade ago. There have been times where when slouching forward, or leaning back on the couch would put me into afib or palpitations.

I haven't been in afib that I'm aware of and I'm currently wearing a halter monitor to track, but when lean back on the couch I can feel them come on again. I've told the doctors this and they've kinda disregarded it.

I've had an MRI of my heart done in the past 3 years and nothing abnormal was found.

Increasing heart palpitations and nighttime arrhythmia for 10+ years despite “normal” heart tests — anyone else experienced this?

I’ve been experiencing an increasing number of heart palpitations / extra heartbeats over the years, and I’m wondering if anyone here has had similar experiences or found anything that helps.

The extra beats usually happen in the evening or at night when I’m lying down. Sometimes they also happen during the day, but not as often. This started around 10 years ago, and the frequency has gradually increased since then.

Today, there are periods where it happens almost every night, and other periods where it barely happens at all. I still haven’t figured out what triggers it exactly. I suspect chocolate, nuts, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners might make it worse, so I’ve removed those from my diet, but I still experience the palpitations.

The biggest issue is that sometimes the extra beats are so strong that they seem to knock my heart out of its normal rhythm. When that happens, my heartbeat becomes irregular (arrhythmia). Occasionally I wake up suddenly at night with my heart beating completely irregularly, which is honestly pretty frightening.

Over the past 10 years I’ve seen multiple cardiologists, had scans, ECGs, and different kinds of heart monitoring done. The doctors basically tell me that everything looks normal structurally, and that they can see the extra beats, but that occasional extra beats are considered normal.

Still, it feels like things have gradually become worse over time, especially at night, and I’m struggling to understand why this keeps happening.

Has anyone experienced something similar, or found anything that helped reduce it or identify the cause?

Ok so literally for the past week or so I am having palpitations. It feels like my heart is, like, pounding too hard, working too hard in my chest? And I sometimes can see it moving in my chest?! It's basically been nonstop for the past week. I have no dizziness or shortness of breath or nausea or arm or chest pain. But it's just a bizarre sensation.

My cat who I had since she was a kitten, died very suddenly at ten. Then my other cat who is a senior, began acting strangely, and I got terrified I'd lose him, and ended up spending money I didn't have on blood work and an ultrasound and medication. Then I had to get front brakes and rotors for my car, and discovered someone hit the bumper and drove away. And, I'm having a midlife crisis and want to have a child, but have health and financial problems that preclude doing so until said problems are resolved, so that's been constantly on my mind, my biological clock ticking.

My father had 3 heart attacks and we think he may have died of a 4th so I'm obviously worried I'll follow in his footsteps.

My mom had one, and she told me her heart was racing the other night so ofc I'm worried about her.

I had an ekg and echocardiogram a few months ago, bc of pain between my ribs. All normal.

Went to urgent care bc of the palpitations yesterday, ekg normal. At first my BP was a TINY bit raised (my BP is usually normal or a bit low), but then he re-checked it and it was normal. He said it's anxiety and stress, but I can see cardiologist to get a Holter monitor just to be sure. I'll call my cardiologist when I'm off work Monday, I guess, but my work is such that I can only see him when I have a day off - I have no sick time, I can't miss work for a doctor appt.. So it'll be a challenge.

Point being in the meantime, this is disturbing and I keep worrying, what if they're wrong? What if I just die in my sleep? I really don't want to. This feeling is just so strange and uncomfortable.

I've been trying that 4-7-8 breathing so, so, so, so many times. No joy. Tried vagal maneuver. Didn't work.

What else can I do to stop this? And how to convince myself it's not a heart attack about to happen?

Thanks if somebody reads this and has any advice. I am just worried but I so don't want to go spend 7+ unnecessary hours in the ER when I don't have any other symptoms.

Hello everyone. I’ve been dealing with symptomatic bradycardia for quite some time, mainly during wakefulness and at rest. What draws my attention the most is that whenever I stay around 3–4 hours without eating, the bradycardia seems to become much more pronounced and I start feeling lightheaded, mentally “foggy,” mildly dizzy and generally unwell, especially around 11:15 AM and again near 4:15 PM. I’ve noticed this pattern repeatedly over time.

I’m 33 years old, weigh 104 kg, and train at the gym around 3 times a week. Despite being overweight, I still seem to have relatively preserved exercise tolerance. While running on the treadmill, my heart rate can reach 165 bpm without major limiting symptoms, so chronotropic response during exertion appears to be intact. The issue is mainly at rest, especially during fasting or when my stomach is empty.

At rest, sitting or standing still, my heart rate may stay around 55, 53, sometimes even 47 bpm while awake. It’s not constant, but it happens frequently enough to concern me. I already underwent two Holter monitor evaluations, and both confirmed sinus bradycardia. During sleep, one Holter recorded my heart rate dropping to 30 bpm.

Another important aspect is that I seem to have significant gastrointestinal hypersensitivity. When my stomach is empty, the bradycardia and malaise worsen noticeably. On the other hand, when I eat too much or have large meals, I start experiencing bothersome premature beats/extrasystoles. There seems to be a very clear gut–heart interaction in my case, which makes me suspect a strong autonomic/vagal component.

I’m also tapering off escitalopram after approximately one year of treatment. Throughout the treatment period, I subjectively noticed the bradycardia becoming progressively more evident. I don’t know whether this is causal or coincidental, but I believe it’s relevant to mention.

Another strange symptom involves peripheral circulation sensations. Sometimes it feels as if my extremities are not receiving adequate blood flow. For example, when measuring blood pressure, if the cuff compresses my arm for a short period, it becomes numb and uncomfortable very quickly. I often experience a sensation of “weak circulation,” although I understand subjective perception does not necessarily reflect actual hemodynamics.

What worries me the most is the psychological burden this has created. I constantly monitor my heart rate and keep trying to correlate symptoms with food intake, fasting periods, posture, gastrointestinal activity and autonomic fluctuations. At this point, I genuinely don’t know whether this is primarily a functional/high-vagal sinus bradycardia amplified by anxiety, hypervigilance and gastrocardiac interactions, or whether there could be an actual autonomic dysfunction, conduction abnormality, metabolic/endocrine component, or even something partially related to escitalopram use/withdrawal.

I would appreciate technical opinions, especially from people who have encountered similar cases involving resting sinus bradycardia associated with fasting, gastrointestinal hypersensitivity, postprandial extrasystoles and possible autonomic/vagal dysregulation.

Ive been having skipped heartbeats for over a year. They started small like a Skip beat here and there every couple months. Then they would come back one or two once a week. Then I started getting them once a day, then they would go away again and then they came back and I would get 20 a day in just one day and then none the next three days. Now I get them sporadically I never know when they’re gonna happen, but I also get them sometimes after I eat, or if I’m too full, it doesn’t matter what I eat. A lot of the times I won’t get any after eating. I have noticed, though if I eat, sometimes I’ll get a very fast heart rate after eating it will go from 70 up to 95. It’s not all the time though it’ll do that every couple weeks then stop and then it will happen every day for a week and then it will stop again for another week. Now for the past couple months I’ve been experiencing dizziness every day like I’m loopy all the time, along with the skipped beats. I have had an echocardiogram done. Everything is fine. I had the bilateral of my arteries in my neck done. Everything was fine there too. I had a heart monitor on for seven days they found only a couple rare PVCs. Now lately if I bend over at work my heart will skip a beat almost every time I bend over to grab garbage or sometimes if I bend way down, it will skip a beat like my heart is flopping around or something then I’ve noticed if I twist a certain way it feels like my heart goes out of rhythm because it goes very fast and feels like I’m going to faint a little cause I get dizziness with it and I have to stop what I’m doing reposition myself and breathe. Example I was painting a banister on some stairs and I had to twist to get to the other side so I twisted my stomach and my chest area and it didn’t do it right away, but I held that position for maybe a minute if that and and then my heart started going crazy. I’ve noticed any position now if I twist or if my chest is compressed it does it. It’s like it’s beating so fast out of like a rhythm and then it goes back to normal once I go back to a normal position . The doctors did the basic metabolical blood test. Everything is fine except for my magnesium and potassium are low, also my sodium is always at a 134 and CO2 are low, but I have been doing well with keeping that up and I still have everything going wrong sometimes I think the magnesium glycinate helps with the palpitations and Skip beats and then I have them no matter what. This might not be anything with my lifestyle change, but I have noticed that my heart rate is lower than it normally is and also my blood pressure has also went down a little bit. Did do diet changes because my cholesterol was high and I quit drinking alcohol altogether. The dizziness goes away when I sleep at night and when I wake up I feel fine. I do my workout with no issues for an hour. It’s afterwards that everything starts happening. I don’t understand why my heart would go crazy with me twisting a certain way. Has anyone experienced any of this and found out what is wrong with them? I am so sick of it I cry because I have no answers and it makes no sense why I have all these symptoms. Has anyone experienced any of this? I am at a loss and my doctors think I’m nuts and I’m not. I don’t feel normal and I don’t understand what is wrong. Can anybody help please???