Palpitations and having ecg tomorrow what to expect

[prettypurpledaisy]

I have been having palpitations where I feel my heart is not going to beat and then does so really strongly, these leave me feeling breathless. Saw Dr on Friday and am having an ecg tomorrow. I am a bit nervous, it is one of those ones where I wear it for a day and they look at the readings.
Reassurance please.

If your surgery are doing it its likely to be a one off reading not a 24 hour one, its really very simple but you do need to strip to the waist for the pads to be applied. It will give a general reading of how your heart is but will only show what is happeneing at that time.

The 24 hour recorder is nothing to worry about, although the wires are a bit annoying, and you can't have a bath or shower while wearing it.

It's just so that they have a better chance of you experiencing paplpitations while they can record what's happening, so they can see what kind of palpitation you are having, and if they think you need any further investigations.

The biggest pain is if you don't have any symptoms, really, as then they're no closer to finding out what's going on

Don't worry. It's completely painless and you won't feel a thing. The machine reads the electrical activity produced by your heart, it doesn't do anything to you.

ECG in the surgery takes a few minutes. The 24 hour one takes about 5 minutes to apply then you wear it for 24 hours (obviously!)

You will have 6 sticky pads stuck to your chest around your left breast, then probably 2 on your shoulders and maybe one or two on your abdomen, depending which machine they have. The wires run from the pads to the machine, which is usually like a little pack that you wear around your waist on a belt.

It will record constantly but you won't know it's doing anything. They may ask you to note down when you feel the palpitations so they can correlate the feelings you have with what they see on the computer printout afterwards.

I had a 24 hour tape a few years ago when I was experiencing palpitations. As already mentioned, it's very straight forward but a bit inconvenient to wear. However, it's worth it to find out if there is anything seriously wrong, which of course I hope there isn't in your case!

Good luck prettypurpledaisy - do let us know how things go.

Just back from the Dr, had an ecg in the surgery and it detected an arterial flutter, whatever that is, so off to have blood taken in the morning and have an appointment next week to discuss the results.
Thanks everyone for reassuring me.

Glad it went well. I imagine they found an atrial flutter