Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Palpitationes
Almost everyone has occasional extra beats — unsettling, but usually entirely harmless.
Also known as: palpitations · skipped beats · racing heart · fluttering
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Feeling your heart thump, skip or race is very common and usually harmless. Often it’s single extra beats or a normal response to coffee, alcohol, little sleep, stress, excitement or exercise. An overactive thyroid, anaemia, fever or certain medicines also make the heart noticeable. Less often a rhythm disorder is behind it (e.g. atrial fibrillation — often an irregular pulse). To place it: does the pulse feel regular or “jumbled”, and how long does it last? Get checked quickly for palpitations with dizziness, fainting, chest pain or breathlessness — otherwise a calm look at triggers and an ECG at the doctor’s usually suffice.
Single extra beats are harmless with a healthy heart. It becomes different when the pulse runs without any pattern, when the racing starts and stops abruptly, or when dizziness, breathlessness and fainting join in — then the recording during the symptoms counts.
Before a long search for a rhythm disorder, potassium and magnesium belong measured. Both are quick, often the explanation, and simple to put right.
Less caffeine/alcohol, enough sleep and less stress often calm the heart.
Next time, feel the pulse: regular or irregular? This helps the assessment.
An ECG (sometimes over 24 h) shows whether a rhythm disorder is present.
Palpitations with fainting, chest pain or breathlessness — don’t wait.
If the palpitations are new days to two weeks after an infection and performance drops at the same time.
Almost everyone has occasional extra beats; in healthy people a long-term ECG finds up to a hundred a day without that meaning anything. From about ten per cent of all beats across the day a cause is looked for, because over the years the pumping function can change. What stands out is skipping under exertion, with dizziness or fainting — in the harmless pattern it tends to disappear under exertion.
Beta blockers damp the perception of extra beats and lower their number somewhat — they do not remove them, and in harmless forms the benefit is questionable. Magnesium and potassium work if they are lacking; at normal values studies show little. What often achieves more: leaving out caffeine, alcohol and lack of sleep for two weeks and watching. With very frequent extra beats, ablation comes into question, because otherwise the pumping function can change over years.
Very common and usually quite harmless, often noticed at rest.
Caffeine, alcohol, excitement and little sleep make the heart pound.
A “jumbled” pulse can point to atrial fibrillation — get it checked.
This combination needs prompt medical assessment.
Makes sure the muscle lets go again after tensing. A lack favours cramps, twitching and inner restlessness — and the blood value reflects the store poorly.
They lower the blood fats and act on the excitability of the heart muscle. Oily sea fish twice a week is the best-supported route; very high doses from capsules are not a harmless more.
Sets the excitability of muscle and nerve. A low value causes weakness and cramps, a high one is dangerous for the heart rhythm — here one measures rather than guesses.
Sets off the tensing in the muscle in the first place. A low value causes tingling around the mouth and in the fingers and cramping of the hands.
With heavy sweating both are lost together. Drinking only water dilutes the sodium further — with long exertion salt belongs with it.
With a proven deficiency extra beats occur more often and become rarer with correction. Without a deficiency no effect is shown — 300–400 mg a day over 4 weeks answers the question cheaply.
Low potassium is one of the most common reasons for extra beats, especially on water tablets. The value belongs measured — with reduced kidney function too much is more dangerous than too little.
The first suspect, and in studies at the same time the least confirmed: with regular coffee drinking no rise in extra beats could be measured. In individuals the link is nonetheless clear — two weeks without give the personal answer.
Effects on inflammation and triglycerides established; cardiovascular prevention is mixed. Watch quality and freshness.
An overactive thyroid is one of the most common fixable reasons for atrial fibrillation and extra beats — especially in older people, where it otherwise barely shows. A single TSH value settles it.
Extra beats are noticed most at rest, because the heart is beating slowly then and the added beat stands out. This is why they are felt in bed in the evening and not on the stairs — reassuring and mostly correct.
A too high aldosterone level drives potassium out and causes extra beats, muscle weakness and high blood pressure at once. That combination makes the question of Conn’s syndrome worth asking — it is more common than was long assumed.
Isolated extra beats are usually harmless. In studies coffee triggers them less often than assumed, alcohol and lack of sleep more often. Four weeks of a diary say more than any guess.
With frequent skipped beats measurement is worthwhile, especially on water tablets or after diarrhoea. Correction follows the finding, not suspicion.
With a proven deficiency correction improves the skipped beats in some. Without deficiency no effect is shown — measure before taking.
Slow breathing lowers the perception of the heartbeat. With harmless extra beats that is often the actual problem — not the beat, but the feeling of it.
The Heart houses the spirit in TCM — palpitations, restlessness and poor sleep are one pattern there and not three complaints.
At the wrist, the “spirit gate”. The most-named point for restlessness and trouble falling asleep.
Three fingers above the wrist crease. The only point with solid studies — for nausea, though, not for heart rhythm.