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nosrednaydujA few weeks ago I noticed that my heart wasn't beating in a normal rhythm. Mostly I noticed this at night because I have a stupid ear that echoes my heartbeat in certain positions and makes it hard to sleep. Well, having my heart go bump-pause-bump-bump made it even harder to sleep...
Eventually I took myself off to the doctor. I mostly noticed it when I was trying to sleep, and it seemed to happen more often then; when I took my pulse at random times during the day the effect was there but the pauses were not nearly as frequent. Thus, of course it didn't show in the EKG.
While chatting with my doctor I pushed at him about how it mostly happened at night, and during the day much less frequently, so he said we'd do the EKG again, and run it for more than 20 seconds (well, duh no wonder it didn't happen! Also I had been way too interested in the procedure). For the second EKG, I tried very hard to meditate and breathe slowly and think sleepy thoughts while waiting for the nurse, and then tried not to pay attention to what she was doing to me, and they ran it for 2 minutes. Ding! We got one. (Only one. I was surprised, since while I doing the "think sleepy thoughts" part, I felt several of them.)
But anyway, one was enough for him to say it was a "classic missed beat", and was completely benign. He didn't have an answer to why I was having 10 of them every minute, but he wasn't concerned, since I didn't have any of the other classic heart problem symptoms such as shortness of breath or pain in my left side and my overall heart rate was good. In fact, I've been happily bicycling to work, waterskiing, going to yoga, all my stuff, and feeling completely fine about it. He suggested that I try stopping caffeine use, so I'm trying that, since I only have one caffeinated beverage a day. He also suggested stopping chocolate, and that I'm less willing to do. So far no real change, though I've been sleeping a little better.
Eventually I took myself off to the doctor. I mostly noticed it when I was trying to sleep, and it seemed to happen more often then; when I took my pulse at random times during the day the effect was there but the pauses were not nearly as frequent. Thus, of course it didn't show in the EKG.
While chatting with my doctor I pushed at him about how it mostly happened at night, and during the day much less frequently, so he said we'd do the EKG again, and run it for more than 20 seconds (well, duh no wonder it didn't happen! Also I had been way too interested in the procedure). For the second EKG, I tried very hard to meditate and breathe slowly and think sleepy thoughts while waiting for the nurse, and then tried not to pay attention to what she was doing to me, and they ran it for 2 minutes. Ding! We got one. (Only one. I was surprised, since while I doing the "think sleepy thoughts" part, I felt several of them.)
But anyway, one was enough for him to say it was a "classic missed beat", and was completely benign. He didn't have an answer to why I was having 10 of them every minute, but he wasn't concerned, since I didn't have any of the other classic heart problem symptoms such as shortness of breath or pain in my left side and my overall heart rate was good. In fact, I've been happily bicycling to work, waterskiing, going to yoga, all my stuff, and feeling completely fine about it. He suggested that I try stopping caffeine use, so I'm trying that, since I only have one caffeinated beverage a day. He also suggested stopping chocolate, and that I'm less willing to do. So far no real change, though I've been sleeping a little better.
