Ectopic Heartbeat

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JRitchie Mar 2015 12:23pm, 30 Mar 2015 993 posts	0 JRitchie Went to doctor after a 3 months of heightened sense of heartbeat and told I have Ectopic heartbeat. Its quite clear from the stethoscope apparently and I am going for ECG though I have those annually with work and nothing has been raised before. Rather oddly the sensation clears itself while I am running and otherwise I feel fine but being 47 I tend to get more anxious about such stuff. Doing the paranoid research on-line shows a mix of don't fret and be careful. I'm going to sut out caffine and alcohol: stress reduction will take a little more time and don't want to reduce my running. Anyone else experienced this? If so, what happended?
eL Bee! Mar 2015 12:52pm, 30 Mar 2015 19,839 posts	0 eL Bee! Yup - I get fairly regular Premature Ventricular ectopics and I can feel them coming on. In a previous life I was a Cardiac ITU nurse - so on a quiet shift one day I was used as a teaching session (My trace was 'interesting' anyway with a RHR of 36 (at the time) a noticeable sinus arrhythmia and disappearing 'p' waves at my lower HRs) so I got a complete MOT from the specialists while. In the absence of any underlying pathology (they also echo'd me) the consensus was "interesting but normal - nothing to worry about" Caffeine (lots of) definitely worsens it as does being very tired/stressed. As long as (quite important that) there is no underlying issue, you'll probably find that running helps!! That said it's worth seeing what the ECG and stuff shows, because although my ectopics are a normal variant - not all are, and some causes are made worse with stressing the heart muscle. You can't diagnose cardiac stuff on the interwebernet or on a forum like this! Being patient until you've been checked out is the best advise you can have tbh
JRitchie Mar 2015 6:03pm, 30 Mar 2015 994 posts	0 JRitchie Thanks eL Bee my RHR is 42 and I also notice what I have being influenced by Caffine (and alcohol next day - even after only a couple of glasses of wine). I have a fairly full medical annually and the trace has always been fine (and no family history) so I am hoping its "external" factors which I can then change or modify. As you rightly say, time to leave it the experts to check it out.