Ectopic beats

[Moskitoh]

I feel a bit like a fool but I'm a bit anxious about all of this.

Some background, I’m a 31yo woman, I stopped smoking a year and a half ago, and I don’t really do sport (and I almost did nothing physical during the year long covid confinement) except walking and bike riding. I’m very slightly overweight.

So long story short, 5 years ago I woke up at night feeling like my heart had a hiccup every 30 seconds or so. I learned that it was extrasystoles, or ectopic beats.

After this night, nothing for 5 years. Then it came back for a week this past summer 2022. It went away and two weeks ago it started again, but a bit different. I feel like the pattern of ectopic beats, why it happens and when, are never the same. Last week I had a really bad day when I had more than 20 ectopic beats per minute, sometimes one after the other. I couldn't sleep at night. The next day I felt them regularly but I had less. Now I still feel them, sometimes I have an hour or two where I only have one or two (or nothing) and then for some reasons they start again and I have more than 15 per minute (sometimes it feels like I have more than one in a row) and it lasts 30 minutes to one hour.

I don’t feel breathless and I don’t feel pain. But I do feel a bit dizzy and tired when I have extrasystoles. And of course, it's stressing me out so I probably focus on them and the more I focus, the more I have maybe ?

I saw that a magnesium deficiency could partly be the cause of ectopic beats, so I started to take magnesium a week and a half ago but I don't feel any improvement. Sometimes they go away (or I don't feel them) when I walk or do something physical. But not all the time. Arer ectopic beats linked to food maybe ? Or stomach ? I have trouble with digestion but nothing crazy I think.

I've always had anxiety, I've had OCD for 20 years and my middle name could be anxious. But I've never had ectopic beats before. I honestly don't feel particularly stressed right now, or at this time of year (well, a bit bummed because it's night time at 4pm but who isn't) so I don't get why I have ectopic beats all of a sudden.

I have an appointment to the cardiologist in January but it feels very far away. I feel so tired and anxious because of the ectopic beats and I can't function normally. Do I worry for not much ?

Thanks ❤️