Heart palpitations/skipped beats/choking sensation

[chiquita21]

I have had the sensation of a skipped heartbeat accompanied by a brief choking sensation for as long as I can remember. It never bothered me, I’ve had ECGs done in hospital and they never found anything. I’ve had periods of these flare ups for days and sometimes for over a week if feeling particularly stressed. Since last week, I’ve had a regular flare up of these skipped heartbeats associated with a sinking/choking sensation in my chest for a split second. Then my heart rate returns to normal. Seems to be more profound when I’m sitting down. Walking and exercising my heart seems absolutely fine and I haven’t got any other symptoms.

i managed to catch one of these little guys (finally) when doing an ecg on my watch - has anyone else had this? The GP before told me it’s anxiety related and some are more sensitive to these but I feel like no one else has them!!

thanks! :)

You could ask ChatGPT to read it for you but speak to your doctor if worried.

Anxiety related for sure. I suffered from palpitations and globus sensation (the choking feeling). During the day, neither were particularly significant but at night it was awful. It all went away for a while (I managed some stressful aspects of my life a lot better), but the palpitations are back. I know why and I'm managing it as best I can. Are you of an age that perimenopause could be considered? That can bring it all on.

Im going to see if it continues much today/tomorrow and get an appointment scheduled with my GP. I do have an echo booked for next month (through a charity that offers heart screening for young adults). I have asked ChatGPT plenty of questions though!

I thought it was anxiety too, to be honest. I remember having it before for about two weeks during a rather stressful period and I did have quite a lot of stress that was work related a few weeks ago or so. Probably the heat doesn’t help either. I’m 27, stress head for sure! And suffer with anxiety!! The throat feeling always throws me off, it feels like my chest is sinking and I’m choked for a split second. I’ve upped my exercise as I weirdly don’t get them when I’m walking/working out!

Not peri then 😅. Are you taking any supplements at all?

I had the palpitations recently, I wouldn't say checking sensation though. Gp couldn't find anything from ECG or bloods (he was checking thyroid amount other things - has that been checked for you).

He asked if I had much caffeine and I realised my consumption had crept up, so cut right down and it hardly ever happens now, so that must have been at least part of the issue. I do think there was an anxiety element too though.

I’ve started taking my supplements again recently; multivitamin with iron (I used to be anaemic), cod liver oil, collagen, probiotics and vitamin D. I drink a lot of water daily too, about 2.5l. I’ve minimised my caffeine intake and stopped social smoking too… aaaargh!!! The more I think about it, the worse it gets and they come on! 😭

I’ve had my thyroid checked before and nothing came up. I tend to have these more when I’m stressed or anxious. I’ve had a really stressful period at work and a number of work related exams, including learning how to drive etc etc. Felt like it was all piling on. When I went to a&e before with my heart, they didn’t find anything and blamed it on anxiety. I had all bloods done then too. So annoying…

Do you have a productive cough with the palpitations? Ie cough up a bit of mucous? If you don’t know, try coughing the next time you get one.

It could be dairy causing it. It caused mine. I cut out dairy and it goes away after a couple of weeks.

Thank you for that tip! I’m going to try and cough next time it happens. Seems like there’ll be plenty of opportunities with the way they’re coming on now! Have you changed anything else to minimise them? Do they still happen?

I had the sensation of my heart missing a beat every few minutes. It was stress related. I changed job and rarely get it now.

When my estrogen drops throughout my cycle my palpitations step up - monitor your cycle and see if there’s a correlation x

Have you had your iron levels checked recently? I get this with low ferritin.

How much vitamin D are you taking? It threw me into anxiety last year and I'm still not back to 100%. I get jittery and heart palpitations anytime I'm anxious now plus before my period and I'd never had that before. I was taking 5k a day tho which is quite high a dose. You could think about adding some magnesium as that's supposed to help with heart palpitations, anxiety etc.

Sounds like it’s anxiety related.. if there was anything wrong with your heart it would worsen with exercise. I’ve had skipped beats before.. worse after caffeine and alcohol

I gave up dairy. All issues stopped and I felt much better within a fortnight. I was also getting dizzy and heartbeat in my ear. All of that went too.

It comes back if I have some dairy, i can only eat the bare minimum of things with dairy or it seems to create the mucous again.