Heart Palpitations Causes and Symptoms
What is Heart Palpitation?
Heart palpitations causes: heart palpitations are the sensations of a hammering, throbbing, or racing heart. They can be triggered by stress, workout, medication, or, in rare cases, a medical condition. Moreover, heart palpitations can be alarming, but they’re usually nothing to worry about. They may, sometimes, be an indication of a more serious cardiac condition, such as an irregular heart rhythm, which may necessitate treatment in rare situations.
Heart Palpitation Symptoms
- The rapid fluttering of the heart
- Too quick heartbeat
- Hammering
- Flip-flopping
- skipping heartbeats
What Causes Heart Palpitations
Heart palpitations causes include the following:
- Anxiety, tension, fear, and panic are examples of emotions.
- Pregnancy can also be a cause.
- Intake of Caffeine.
- Thyroid hyperactivity.
- Low sugar, potassium, and oxygen levels
- Low Carbon dioxide levels in the blood
- High Fever
- Anaemia
- Dehydration
- Blood loss
- Intake of medications like beta-blockers (used to treat hypertension or heart disease), asthma inhalers and decongestants, thyroid, and antiarrhythmic drugs.
- Cough and cold medications
- There are a few herbal and dietary supplements available
- Amphetamine and Cocaine use as a recreational drug
- Nicotine
- Intake of Alcohol
How to diagnose palpitations?
You don’t need to consult your doctor if your palpitations start after you’ve had an anxiety attack and then go away on your own. Anxiety-induced palpitations that linger for hours or prevent you from doing daily tasks should be examined.
Heart palpitations causes: If you get palpitations without an anxiety-inducing reason, you should contact your doctor. It could be something simple to fix, such as a prescription side effect that can be alleviated by altering medications. Palpitations could be a sign of anemia, high BP, thyroid or fever.
Your specialist can perform a few different tests to figure out what’s wrong with your chest. They’ll start by giving you a physical checkup and using a stethoscope to hear your heartbeat. Then they may employ one or more of the diagnostic screenings listed below:
- Holter monitoring – This entails wearing specific equipment 24 hours a day to monitor your heart rate and any variations in it. It’s normally only worn for 3 days at a time, and it may not “record” any palpitations if you only get them once in a while.
- Electrocardiogram – Numerous electrodes are put on your chest to monitor your heart’s electrical activity. It can aid in the diagnosis of an arrhythmia or the exclusion of a heart rhythm disorder.
- Event recording – If a Holter monitor fails to detect any rhythm problems, this is utilized generally. Although you can wear the recorder for weeks at a time, it only records your cardiac arrhythmias when you click a button while experiencing symptoms.
Risk factors
- Lot of stress
- Have been diagnosed with an anxiety illness or suffer from panic attacks on a regular basis.
- Pregnancy
- Take stimulant-containing medications, such as flu or asthma medicines.
- Have a thyroid gland that is overactive.
- Have an arrhythmia, a cardiac defect, a past heart attack, or previous heart surgery
Complications due to heart palpitations
- Fainting – Your blood pressure can decrease if your heart beats too quickly, leading you to pass out. Additionally, if you have a cardiac problem, such as congenital heart defects or certain valve disorders, this is more probable.
- Cardiac arrest – Palpitations can occasionally be caused by life-threatening arrhythmias, which lead your heart to stop pumping properly.
- Stroke: Blood can pool and produce clots if palpitations are caused by atrial fibrillation, a disorder in which the top chambers of the heart flutter instead of beating normally. A clot can break out and restrict a brain artery, resulting in a stroke.
- Heart failure – This can happen if your heart has been pumping inefficiently for a long. It can occur as a consequence of arrhythmia like atrial fibrillation. Managing the rate of an arrhythmia that causes heart failure can sometimes help your heart perform better.
Treatment
The optimum treatment for you will be determined by the source of your palpitations. It’s possible that you won’t require any therapy. You should avoid specific meals if your palpitations are caused by them. You may require medication, treatment, surgery, or a device to treat heart disease or an irregular heart rhythm. It’s critical that you keep all of your follow-up appointments with your doctor.
Bottom Line
Sometimes heart palpitations can put your life in danger. Without taking any risk, schedule an appointment with your cardiologist. There can be a wide range of heart palpitations causes. Hence, before predicting anything by yourself, take expert advice immediately. If you want to know more about how to stop heart palpitations make an appointment with a cardiologist.
Read more: Heart Palpitations and Anxiety