Answer:

Thank you for your question. When you experience an sudden raise or acceleration in your heart rhythm, we need to have you wear a heart monitor that allows you to push a button when you get the symptoms and you need a electrocardiogram. These tests allow your doctor to know the heart rhythm associated with your symptoms. Heart rates and suddenly race and suddenly stop, often reflect an abnormal heart rhythm called a supraventricular tachycardia. There are many ways to treat a supraventricular tachycardia so you don’t experience symptoms, but the first step is diagnosing the problem. The skipped beats are often extra beats from the upper or lower heart chambers. Extra beats from the upper chamber we call premature atrial contractions (PACs) and those from the bottom chambers premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). The heart monitor will let your doctor know from which chamber and location these beats are coming. These extra beats when you feel your push often aren’t felt. When you have an extra beat the heart will then pause to allow the heart to have more time to fill up with blood and make up for the early extra beat. This makes you feel like the heart missed a beat and then the next beat feels hard or more forceful. Again, the first step is to see your doctor and diagnose the problem.

Answer:

Thank you for your question. Anemia is a cause of an elevated heart rate, but it should not make your heart beat go up suddenly. We only see sudden changes in heart rate when you have a lot of blood loss suddenly. If you have anemia from day-to-day or month-to-month, your body and heart adjust to the lower blood volume. If you are change position quickly, your body has to bring up your blood pressure quickly so you don’t feel lightheaded. If you are anemia or dehydrated, the heart has to work extra hard when you change position quickly so you don’t get lightheaded or pass out. The heart does this by beating faster and more forceful. However if you experience a sudden increase in heart rate at times when you are not doing anything to provoke it we usually want to have you wear a heart monitor. The heart monitor tells us what your heart rhythm is when you are experiencing symptoms. In patients that develop chest pain, we usually like to have you see your doctor to get an ultrasound of the heart and have a heart monitor study performed. Chest pain in women is more variable than in men. Even though your chest pain is on the right, we have to be more careful in women than me, to exclude the heart since women often have different manifestations of heart disease or heart strain.

Answer:

Thank you for your question. You need to see your doctor for an electrocardiogram (ECG) and if this is normal then wear a heart monitor. As a diabetic you are at higher risk for problems with your heart. A common abnormal heart rhythm in diabetic patients is atrial fibrillation, which can make your heart rate go fast for many days. Your doctor needs to know if you are experiencing this heart rhythm because it can cause stroke, heart failure, and other problems with your heart. Often you will be able to maintain your normal activity with an abnormal heart rate for the first few weeks, but if your heart rate stays above 100 beats per minute for many days to weak, the heart muscle can fatigue and develop heart failure.

Answer:

Thank you for your question. Your history sounds like you are having either extra beats from the upper chambers (premature atrial contractions, PACs) or lower chambers (premature ventricular contractions, PVCs). The 48 hour ECG will help to count how many you are having and from what chamber and what locations. Usually these extra beats are suppressed with you are exercising and as such do not present a threat to your during exercise, even during a marathon. However, as your resting heart rate goes down you make experience extra beats afterward. Before you run the marathon, you need to make sure that your symptoms are truly either PACs or PVCs and that they are suppressed when you exercise. If they accelerate or increase during exercise, then you will likely need to be treated with a medicine or another means before high level exercising. If they are PACs or PVCs make sure that you stay well hydrated, replace you electrolytes when you exercise (potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium) and sometimes taking extra magnesium up to 400 mg a day can help. All of this should be done including your doctor.

Answer:

Thank you for your question. Often when you take thyroid replacement therapy, we have to check your blood levels from time to time to make sure your dose is correct. The required dose can change. If your old dose is now too high for your body, your heart can develop abnormal heart rhythms, usually from the upper chamber, and an elevated heart rate. This is unusual in somebody taking a regular dose of synthroid for many years, but it does happen and a simple blood test can determine if your dose is correct. Alcohol is an irritant to the heart. In fact, one heart rhythm we commonly see called atrial fibrillation, was initially described as holiday heart as it would develop after alcohol use. We often feel our heart more at night since there are less distractions and if you lie on your left side you heart will fall against the chest and make it so you can feel your heart with your chest wall. In your case, you need to wear a heart monitor an push an activation button with it so your doctor can understand what heart rhythm is occurring during your symptoms. Even in somebody that is very healthy, abnormal heart rhythms can occur and diagnosing which type is occurring helps us treat you the best.

Answer:

Thank you for your question. Anemia is a cause of an elevated heart rate, but it should not make your heart beat go up suddenly. We only see sudden changes in heart rate when you have a lot of blood loss suddenly. If you have anemia from day-to-day or month-to-month, your body and heart adjust to the lower blood volume. When you experience a sudden increase in heart rate, that can occur in a random manner, we usually want to have you wear a heart monitor. The heart monitor tells us what your heart rhythm is when you are experiencing symptoms. It may be that your normal pacemaker cells of your heart are just beating too quickly because you are young, slender, and anemic. However, in this situation, usually the heart doses not go up suddenly unless you stand up quickly or change position quickly. When the heart rate goes up suddenly and stops suddenly that is suspicious for a fast heart rate, usually from the upper chambers of the heart, called a supraventricular tachycardia. As I mentioned, the best way to make sure this is what you are experiencing is for you to see your doctor and wear a heart monitor.

Answer:

Thank you for your question. When you take a hot shower, our blood pressure can go down because the blood vessels around our body and skin begin to dilate. When the blood pressure drops, then our heart will beat faster and more forceful. Usually this is the cause of an elevation in heart rate with a hot shower. You can try to take a shower with warm water or minimize the time you spend in the hot shower. With your period, changes in the hormone levels in the body can alter the way your blood vessels dilated and constrict. If your heart begins to beat suddenly in other occasions that to you seems abnormal or out of place, you should talk with your doctor. We often use heart monitors that you wear from days to weeks that tell us exactly what the heart is doing when you get your symptoms

Answer:

Although relatively rare, people can experience change in taste after a stroke, from the stroke itself. The mechanism of eating and taste are complex and if any of the signals required for this process are interrupted with a stroke, then the taste experience can be altered. We usually hope to see an improvement in symptoms over the 6 months after a stroke, but all patients are different. In addition to the stroke, many medications do cause a change in taste, particularly those that are used to control heart rhythms or seizure activity. For heart rhythms, the most common drugs that effect tastes after first propafenone and then to a lesser extent flecainide.

Answer:

Before saying that your symptoms are normal or potentially serious, we typically need to understand what is causing your symptoms. We usually do this with a heart monitor that you can wear up to many weeks that activates when you push a button and/or if an abnormal heart rhythm occurs. If there is an abnormal heart rhythm, we also usually want to get an understanding of the mechanical function of your heart muscle and valves. We do this with an ultrasound of the heart. We all feel our hearts differently, so sometimes mild symptoms can be associated with very serious heart problems and then in other people very severe symptoms can develop with little to no heart problems. The most common cause of skipped beats is actually extra beats. We can get extra beats from the upper heart chambers (atrium) called premature atrial contractions (PACs) or from the bottom chambers (ventricles) called premature ventricular contractions. When we get an extra beat that comes early we often do not feel it. The heart will then pause before the next normal beat is delivered. This allows the heart to have extra time to fill up with blood to make up for the early extra beat. This pause however makes you feel like your heart missed a beat. We all experience extra beats, but some people can have a lot of them to the point they can occur every other beat. We usually use a heart monitor to make sure that your symptoms truly are from extra beats, and if so, how many you are having and from what location.