Skipped Beats

[villen]

Hi

I am struggling alot with lots of POTS and anxietysymptoms. My heart is pounding hard, and I have a constant pressure/tighntess in my chest and neck (due to tension). I also have problems with bloated stomach (is that the right word?) and IBS, and I feel like the skipped beats have become more frequent after this stomach and chest symptoms came? Could the indigestion and pressure from an expanded and "full of gas" stomach, put an extra pressure on the heartmuscle, causing it to skip a beat and/or pound harder? Or at least give the feeling of a harder beat? I have read that somewhere.

Any good advice on this? And also, I try to do deep abdominal breathing, (for my stress/anxiety), but I don`t feel to good when I do it. I get uneasy, like my autonomic nvervous system doesn`t want me to relax I notice my heart even more, and every time I exhale, it skips a beat. Happens more often if I am stressed/slept too little. Does anyone knows why this only happens when I exhale?

sorry for all the questions. Hope you are doing ok.

Villen

[EarthMother]

Hi Villen,

So sorry you are having a rough patch with the 'skipper beats' as my cardiologist calls them. I trust you've seen your Doctors and have been checked out and they have confirmed the PVCs are begnin in your case.

I am struggling with the same symptoms at present and can share what I've learned on my journey. As for eating and more skips, that's very common. The gas/bloating with more skips, very common too. In part these may happen because the vagus nerve which goes practically everywhere in our body including the stomach and heart, can get over excited during IBS etc. and throw an occasional signal astray that causes the heart to respond with a premature beat. Nothing to worry about. For me a change in diet can help.

My cardiologist last month gave me a new explanation about potassium getting pushed into the cells after eating and this can cause the 'skipper beats' in POTS patients as well. Again nothing to worry about.

Like you I also get the BIG SKIP when I settle into a deep meditation. And yes usually on the exhale. It still scares me when it happens, because of my previous conditioning, but I'm trying to see them as more of an adjustment rather than a cause for alarm.

As for deep slow ab breaths ... these are great sometimes to slow the system down, but in my case I have found that slow shallow breathing is what is needed in a pinch.

Hang in there, I know how scarry these are, every day I still battle my own catastrophic thoughts regarding my heart skips.

Good luck with your healing journey.

Salubrious.

~EM

[mountainsunflower]

Hi, I throw a lot of PVC's and PAC's. It is actually an extra beat... but feels like a skipped beat. And the beat following feels like my heart pounds harder sometimes. They are considered benign by my cardo. They are worse for me when i am stressed or tired. I get them a lot and try not to pay attention to them any more, so i don't know if they are worse after i eat. I also don't know about the breathing, either... but when i am calm or relaxed (or trying to be) I will notice them more.

[jump]

I experience more skipped beats after eating, whether I have indigestion or not. I think it may have something to do with increased blood flow to the stomach/intestines? I'm not sure.

I also get more skipped beats when I'm tired, but I've also noticed that the frequent skipped beats make me feel more tired, too. So for me it's kind of a chicken-or-the-egg thing.

For me, when I breathe deeply I get a little bradycardic, and my skipped beats happen more often when I'm brady. Does your heartrate go low?

Like others have said, it's important to get this checked out by your doc, but I also wanted to reassure you that it's possible to have this and have it not be a medical problem. Before taking beta blockers, I would sometimes have over 300 skipped beats over the course of one hour. It was uncomfortable and scary, but in my case, it wasn't harmful.

For me, the beta blockers have really helped. I didn't expect them to impact my skipping problem but they really have - I now rarely have skipped heart beats. Have your doctors discussed any possible treatments that might help you with this?

good luck,

jump