Hello there! Asking sincerely for help.

[Wesamalmahdi]

Hi my name is Wesam! I found this community while googling teying to find answers. Heres my story.

Ever since I was a teen I can recall getting very rare instances of fluttering in my heart. They were sometimes during a stressful leriod and sometimes not. But they were once a week or month type of events.

As of late ive had what i think is 3 straight weeks of pvcs. They happen after I eat but very tolerable. The scary part which im concerned about is what happens when I sleep.

Just before I doze off, as in, i.e. eyes closed about to sleep, my heart feels like it stops beating for a second then continues. And when that happens I get what feels like a jolt of electricity through my heart to my head and limbs. I feel dizzy and weak when that happens as well.

It happens all through the night until I get exhausted enough to just sleep through it. And then id wake up only a few hours later with the same issue.

My doctor has done a holter monitor test for 24 hours and found some palpitations in the evening but said it didnt pick any up when I slept! Which is crazy because I know I feel! I think the holter is either broken or something weird is going on.

But its really scary since it happens only at night. Can anyone share any insight on this or advice?

[Gavin98]

When you say you're having PVCS, what does it actually feel like and why do you think it's that?

I think it'd be worth telling your doctor everything you've just said if you haven't already, in order for them to get a good picture about what your experiencing.

The holter will record the electricity in your heart so if it was broken it would be apparent in the ECG and the doctor would notice this. Did you keep a record of what times you felt the sensation in a little notebook to be handed back to the doctor?

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Gavin98]

It feels like my heart stops beating for a second and I get a weird sensation throughout my body. And it happens only at night

I didnt think about keeping a record :/ but i did tell him about exactly when this happens to me. I.e when im falling asleep.

[Gavin98 in reply to Wesamalmahdi]

Has the doctor given you a plan of what they plan on doing for this problem?

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Gavin98]

Not yet. He prescribed a beta blocker but im scared to take it

Just wanted to know if anyone had a similar experience they could share with me.

[Gavin98 in reply to Wesamalmahdi]

Well I'm on Bisoprolol, it's been great for me, had some sleep disturbance at first but all settled now.

Feel free to message me if you want to chat about it at all.

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Gavin98]

Thank you so much. I have a cardiology appt soon so I will talk to him about everything God Willing.

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Gavin98]

Just left cardiologist office. I was out on an ekg and he said everything was normal. But I insisted he listen to my heart when im lying down.

He said ok and put the stethoscope to my heart and i lay down attempting to sleep. Within a few seconds I felt that skip and jolt that ran down my whole body. I didnt even tell him he just knew and asked "did you feel it just now?" and I said yeah. And he said you might "have some pvcs". And scheduled me for a holter and a echo in a month!

Should I wait? Now that I know im not crazy. It just happens when im falling asleepnor lying down.

[Gavin98 in reply to Wesamalmahdi]

Yes definitely wait! Unfortunately that's just how it is, everything takes time, unless you go private and pay big money! Since my first invest, I've had to wait roughly 6months to get my ICD for ARVC which is a sudden death syndrome so 1 month isn't too bad!

It's great that you're on the way to a diagnosis, look at it that way!

[Lauriem4]

Does sound like pvcs to me .the heart feels like it's pausing because of the extra beat which you can actually feel. Watch Sanjay Gupta ectopic beats on YouTube. Do you suffer with anxiety at all?

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Lauriem4]

I have been told I suffer from anxiety but idk if I am. Id hate to push aside something and say its my head if it isnt. Ive heard of dr Gupta and I will def check him out right now. Thank you for the assistance.

[Hidden in reply to Wesamalmahdi]

Anxiety isn't in your head ...it can be stimulated by thoughts but anxiety is a hormonal and physical thing. It can happen if there's a bear in the room or cos you think there is a bear in the room or when there's no bear in your mind or in the room.... I used to have adrenal fatigue and would get full blown adrenaline rushes for no reason. And that is also anxiety but its not always mentally induced. And it can feel like a wave that rises in the middle of your torso not so much like a shock for me but like a wave ...or like 70 cups of coffee just got shot into you suddenly... Adrenaline speeds the heart rate up and makes you shakey afterwards... There's also something I'm just looking into now...vagal nerve... I have a feeling its going to be relevant but I haven't looked it up yet... It just seems promising. And your sympathetic and parasympathetic (vagal) system are affected by stress and anxiety. And sympathetic can create anxiety ...I mean its a good thing cos it creates it to get us away from a bear but it can fire for no reason when there's no bear as well...and physical anxiety is often dismissed as a mental problem when its not.

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Lauriem4]

What do you mean by feel it? Like if i put my finger to my pulse I can feel three beats?

[Lauriem4 in reply to Wesamalmahdi]

You see i get them but I also get anxiety. Yes best to not just brush it off as that if you're not sure . Sorry I meant you can't feel the extra beat because it comes from a different cell of the heart.

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Lauriem4]

Oh ok gotcha. So you get that whole sensation too? Like rhe woozy brain jolt that runs through your whole body when youre trying to sleep?

[Lauriem4 in reply to Wesamalmahdi]

Yes it's short of like a panic for a second isn't it and makes you jolt

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Lauriem4]

Yes exactly it runs through my whole body. And yesterday it happened for a long time. Doc said it was a panic attack but idk ive never had one before.

[Jennifer53]

I would suggest you get the holter for 5 days as sometimes 24 hours does not capture the full picture. Do keep trying to find answers.

[Wesamalmahdi in reply to Jennifer53]

I will ask my dr to allow me to wear it for longer God Willing.

[Hidden]

Ah my twin! Yes for me I've had all my teen life onwards an odd heart rhythm...started having palpitations and weirdness a few years ago and ended with me going to bed lying down and my heart would stop beating. No beat...I was like hang on how am I alive...I realised my heart was purring like a cat or an old phone...going brrr brrrrrrrrrr br brrrrr hadn't a clue what was going on. I didn't get a halter as I'd have to travel to a hospital and not doing that with the huge covid at the hospital. And ECG didnt show anything cos it was daytime. And yes I was worried about what might happen in my sleep. Sometimes it would wake me. I was exhausted and had brain issues total loss of memory just going completely blank..not like normal forgetting what you went into the kitchen for but completely blank...like just staring at a wall... What I did was I took a lot of very deep breaths during the day cos I realised I was probably getting brain damage form lack of oxegen. So big deep breaths before I'd go to sleep and if I woke up in the night lots of big deep breaths ... I raised my legs up so blood would flow to my brain at night just in case... The day after my ECG I started taking 400mg of magnesium and some ceyenee pepper as a blood thinner and I felt much better that night ..after a few weeks of contstant episodes every night... I took it for a week and then had to travel forgot my tablets and in two days it started to come back...so I haven't stopped taking it since. I also stopped taking vitimin d until I got my vitamin k to go with it cos vitamin d can increase calcium and that can be unhelpful. I try to get stone dietary sources of magnesium as well..and I take b12 and I suspect I have anemia and I am trying to eat more iron...I check myself with cronometer and consistently don't get enough iron in my diet unless I eat some black pudding. Which I really enjoyed at first but an sick of now. I also read that the furts thing doctors seem to do is put people on blood thinners so since I have no diagnosis I looked at the blood in my wrists and noticed it was very sluggish...if I rubbed it upwards it would creep back like a black slug...so I surmised my blood was not a happy bunny and have been taking cayenne pepper after that my blood has been flowing in my wrists and if I rub upwards it immediately flows back down so just using my own senses that's seem preferable. I'm also drinking more liquids having soups juices coconut water for potassium and hot cocoa for magnesium and some grape and cherry juice berries in general for their anti oxidative affect on heart. I'm not really excersixing as I should be but walking helps. I also attempt to take a cold splash in the shower but I only manage to get my hands and feet and halfway up my legs most of the time. But that also helps my circulation. And I haven't had an episode for about a month now that I am being consistent. You should look at cdreamer s posts he had some interesting things about the vagus nerve connection... I'm only looking into it myself now but it seems like there's something there. The fact that when I'm up and about and stressing in the daytime and then when the a pram sympathetic system should be kicking in at night relaxing is when I got my flutters suggests to me it may be a thing. Not sure what but seems relevant. But don't worry you won't die in your sleep...I mean probably won't. People on here have been living with what sound to be flailing fishes for hearts in their chests for years. But obviously its not a good thing either and you want to find out if any things causing it. A lot of things list heart issues as a symptom...such as magnesium deficency and iron deficiency for me. I can't affords the magnesium RBC test and my doctor told me my iron was fine but failed to do a ferritin test so I got a home test for my iron which showed anemia. I think high iron can also cause issues as well. So it would be good to know for sure. Low potassium and high potassium also. Dehydration even!! So it could be something simple causing it and you need to rule those things out and address them. Hopefully you'll be like me and sorted simply. But it took me years to figure that out basically on my own with some help from people here my doctor was useless. If you have a good one you could get better tests for causes. But its not generally the done thing for doctors to find a cause for a symptom. So you may have to push for tests. Anyway hope you figure it out. Worth a try to take some magnesium and stay hydrated with some electryltes like soups etc. I hope you're lucky like me cos the night I took the magnesium was the first night I slept without it happening...