[eknkc]

I have frequent ectopic beats that I feel as a flutter / heavy beat on my chest. The doc says it won't kill me but it is extremely uncomfortable at times. This has been a great material to learn about the inner workings of heart cells.

BTW Here's an ECG from my Apple Watch showing 3 such beats (you can't miss them): https://link.ekin.dev/l1Vc3Gdf

If you happen to have these, just get checked out by a cardiologist. They are almost always benign but the frequency / daily amount are reasons for concern.

[rdegges]

I had something similar for many years (triggered by an episode of afib brought-on by triggering my vagus nerve). The one thing that has helped me fully get rid of these (after YEARS of trial-and-error) was getting onto beta blockers (Propranolol).

These have COMPLETELY gotten rid of my ectopic beats and also helped me deal with the health anxiety.

If you ever want to talk, feel free to hit me up (contact info in profile).

[grumpy-de-sre]

Propranolol is such an underrated drug, or at-least it was when I first started using it twenty years ago (initially for hand tremors but I found it did more than settle just my hands). Glad others have been discovering its usefulness over the years.

I think they've even recently found use in cancer therapy [1].

Sir James Black the pharmacologist who developed it is an absolute legend [2].

1. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2162402X.2023.2...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPe0sLghRBQ&list=PLVV0r6CmEs...

[eknkc]

Yeah, I’ve been on propranolol and then metoprolol but they don’t seem to do much in terms of reducing ectopics. Currently on metoprolol though.

I’ve had an echo, stress ecg and then a ct angiogram. Everything is physically fine so at this point I mostly ignore them cause at least I know they are not an immediate danger.

Thanks!

[UncleOxidant]

> an episode of afib brought-on by triggering my vagus nerve

I get ectopic beats when I've got trapped gas in the stomach. Sounds weird, but generally when I get them I realize I need to stand up (because I've usually been sitting with bad posture which leads to the trapped gas) and have a large belch and then it calms down. I mentioned this to my doc and he said it was Roemheld syndrome ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roemheld_syndrome ) which is vagus nerve-related.

[benterix]

Yeah I got quite scared when it happened for the first time.

[throwaway7783]

Daily dose of magnesium supplements has made it tolerable for me, when beta blockers (carvedilol) didn't help much.

[elric]

Many (most?) people get ectopic beats, but the threshold for noticing them seems to differ. Being stressed/anxious makes them more noticeable. There's a self-reinforcing feedback loop: the more you notice them & worry about them, the easier you will notice them ...

The thing about arrhythmias is that they can only cause damage while they're happening, but ectopics are only a problem for a single beat, which is not going to impact your oxygenation or blood pressure or anything else. Even a bunch of them every day won't cause any damage.

[UncleOxidant]

> Many (most?) people get ectopic beats, but the threshold for noticing them seems to differ.

This. Some of us have very high levels of proprioception. I can feel my pulse just by sitting quietly - I don't need to put my finger on my wrist to take it. Same with ectopic beats, I definitely feel them. And I find that there's a cycle to it - as you say there's a feedback loop: feel ectopic beat, become anxious, more ectopic beats, more anxious, etc. Then I have to try to actively forget about them. During those feedback times I'll have many ectopic beats / day (many per hour, even), but then some days later I'll realize I haven't had any for a while and I might go for weeks without noticing any.

[eknkc]

Apparently everyone gets them but the burden (% of beats being screwed up) is important. A high burden for prolonged periods means damage accumulation.

I had 2 24 hour monitors and one caught 700 eptopic beats in a day. Another couple months later, 15.000 in a day. The second one was a concern for the cardiologist. She ordered a couple more tests, started beta blockers asked for diet changes.

I still have a high burden as I can feel them but whatever..

[0_____0]

I used to get them occasionally. A few years back I started doing loads of cardio exercise and I noticed a while back that I hadn't had the flutter for a long time. I always wondered if it was due to increased cardiac fitness.

[ggambetta]

I had some of those, verified by ECG. Cut down on coffee a bit, they went away.