Heart Skips a Beat

Skipping a heart beat which is sometimes called as either heart palpitation, or premature atrial or ventricular contraction are very common occurrences. They may or may not be accompanied by heart conditions or heart problems.

When one experience a skipping of the heart beat or what is commonly known as premature ventricular contraction, it may be described as a feeling of flip flop motion or fluttering in the chest area. You may feel that your heart just stopped for a minute or two and then resumes in a much faster heart beat. Whatever the experience may be, one thing is for sure, there are causes why some would normally skip a beat. This includes the following:

You are seriously diagnose of having a heart disease problem such as injury to the heart muscle
You have a high blood pressure
Too much ingestion or mere ingestion of any caffeine rich beverage will affect the beating of your heart
Ingestion of cold and allergic medications
Intake of prescribed medication for persons with high blood pressure or hypertensive persons
Intake of asthma medications such as bronchodilators
Intake of nicotine, alcohol, illegal drugs, and diet pills can cause heart to skip a beat
Having an over reactive thyroid
Having lower blood sugar level
Being anemic
You have chemical imbalances in your body
You often do strenuous exercises
Being too anxious
You Smoke
Someone you had inkling to or your crush suddenly approached you can trigger the heart to skip a beat.

Symptoms & Signs

Patients who reportedly have infrequent mild skipping of heartbeat or the so called premature contraction are often are asymptomatic or reports as having no symptoms at all. They are most of the time unaware that their heart has already skipped a beat or beats for that matter. It is only when one is placed in an ECG or EKG or electrocardiogram where it is evident to the physician that the person is really experiencing the premature ventricular contraction or skipping of heart beats phenomenon.

Some people manifest the following symptoms:

Palpitations felt in the chest and neck and is apparent in the carotid region
Weakness
Short of breath
Dizziness
Fainting
Unusual sweating

And yet some would experience a flip flop, fluttering, pounding or jumping, skipping of beats that will lead to a more increase awareness that you are really experiencing skipping of the heartbeats which will lead to a further endangering of the heart. As one becomes completely aware of the condition, one might begin to panic. Panicking will lead to further seriousness of the disease condition.

Diagnosis

Assessment and Physical Examination

The start of the diagnosis is when the patient, upon thorough gathering of assessment, says that she or he is experiencing the so called “skipped beats”, pauses or palpitations. The palpitations usually occur in an irregular manner. After taking into consideration the patient’s full history the standard physical examination has to been done next.

ECG, EKG or Electrocardiogram

Followed by the use of 12 lead ECG or EKG or electrocardiogram which is a non-conclusive type of diagnosis since it considered being as a not very sensitive device.

Holter device

The Holter device is far better in diagnosing a skipped heart beat occurrences. It records the usual rhythm of the person’s heart for as long as 24 hours for 30 days or indefinite monitoring time whichever the doctor prefers.

Exercise Stress Test

This is the combination of exercise and Electrocardiogram or ECG or EKG. Here the patient will walk or run or even pedal in an exercise bike with attached electrodes in the position of your heart that connects to the ECG equipment. When the skipping of the heart beat disappear on the time of the exercise test was conducted, it means that the condition is harmless. Meanwhile if there are additional extra skipping of the heart beats or extra beats, it connotes a much serious rhythm of the heart problem.

Even Recorder

It is actually a portable kind of ECG that monitors the activity of your heart. It records the electrical activity of the heart just like that of an ECG. It is here that the person is told to push the button whenever symptoms of this disease are felt. When a person pushes the button, the brief ECG strip records it. This will help your physician to look at the heart’s rhythm during the presence of your symptoms or when you are experiencing the symptoms that are associated with this disease condition.

Treatment

Most of the time, the person having symptoms that links to a skipping of the heart beat, which occurs in a non serious way, will require no treatment at all. However, people who usually have bothersome symptoms would be treated to help him or her to feel a whole lot better minus the skipping of the heart beat phenomena. The treatment that is most effective is eliminating the causes or the triggering factors which are already mentioned in the “causes” section of this article. Aside from that, you can also treat it with:

Pharmacological Agents

The Beta blockers is a known treatment for this kind of heart condition, acts as a suppressor to premature or early contractions of this disease condition. Other pharmacological treatment includes antiarrhythmic agents that will change the electrophysiological of the heart to make it be normal. Another drug, which may treat this condition, is the calcium channel blockers.

Electrolyte Replacement

Under this electrolyte replacement includes magnesium and potassium supplements which will prevent in your heart to skip a beat.

Radiofrequency catheter ablation treatment
Lifestyle modification
It is the mere elimination of the triggering factors or etiology of the heart skip beat condition.

The need for this persons having skip heart beats phenomenon to be watched over. Persons who are not watched might have the tendency to progress into a more serious heart condition.

Heart Skips a Beat