Symptoms, Causes, Treatment, and more: Palpitations

You may have experienced heart palpitations if you’ve ever felt your heart racing or pounding. The heart may flutter as a result of an abnormal heart rhythm that causes the heart’s electrical signals to malfunction and cause the heart to beat irregularly.

Palpitations can occasionally be terrifying, especially if you’ve never had any. Thankfully, palpitations frequently are not a cause for alarm and typically happen while at rest. However, you should never disregard them, especially if you have a high risk of developing heart disease. On rare occasions, palpitations may indicate a more serious issue, such as valvular heart disease or hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid). So it’s better to have a full cholesterol test if you are experiencing palpitations.

The symptoms, causes and treatments of palpitations are covered in this blog, along with the important risk factors you should be aware of.

Palpitations Symptoms

Some people experience palpitations infrequently, while others do so frequently. Although everyone’s palpitations are unique, they are typically described as:

• Experiencing a skip in your heartbeat
• Feeling as though your heart is fluttering or throbbing
• A pounding heart
• A feeling of urgency in the chest or neck

You may also experience symptoms like sweating, shortness of breath, or nausea along with your palpitations.

Palpitations can occasionally make you feel dizzy or faint if connected to low blood pressure or heart failure.

Palpitations Causes

Palpitations are frequently brought on by stress, anxiety, or fear as well as by hard exercise and excessive caffeine consumption. People learn to live with this abnormal heart rhythm and they typically go away on their own without any treatment.

The Most Typical Reasons for Palpitations include:

• Anxiety or tension
• Arduous exercise
• Extreme tiredness
• Pregnancy, menopause, or menstruation-related hormonal changes
• Caffeine
• Nicotine\sAlcohol
• Fatty or hot foods
• Pregnancy
• Dehydration
• Anemia
• Panic attacks
• Cardiomyopathy
• Hyperthyroidism
• Heart valve dysfunction
• Various other, more harmful arrhythmias

Treatment for Palpitations

You will need a specific treatment depending on what is causing your palpitations. Palpitations typically disappear on their own or can be treated in one of two ways:

• Exercising your relaxation muscles by doing yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises
• Reducing the dosage of the problematic drug (but first consult your healthcare provider before reducing any medication that is prescribed to you)
• Increasing water intake
• Drinking no alcohol
• Reducing intake of caffeine or hot foods
• Returning to regular exercise

You may require medication, surgery, or a pacemaker to correct your abnormal heart rhythm if it is brought on by thyroid issues, arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation, or another heart condition like heart failure or valvular heart disease.

Therefore, it is advised that you get in touch with a doctor as soon as possible if you have heart palpitations and are at a high risk of developing heart issues. It would be best if you go for regular cholesterol blood test.

Complications

Possible complications for palpitations brought on by a heart condition include:

Fainting:

Blood pressure can fall if the heart is beating quickly, making a person faint. People who have a heart condition, such as congenital heart disease or specific valve issues, are more likely to experience this.

Cardiac arrest 

Rarely, life-threatening heartbeat issues can cause palpitations and stop the heart from beating properly.

Stroke

Blood can pool and lead to clot formation if palpitations are brought on by atrial fibrillation, a condition in which the upper chambers of the heart quiver instead of beating normally. A stroke may result from a loose clot blocking a brain artery.

A Heart Attack

Some arrhythmias can decrease the heart’s ability to pump blood. The heart’s performance can occasionally be enhanced by reducing the rate of arrhythmia causing heart failure.