Hello my name's Sanjay Gupta I'm a cardiologist in York and today I
thought I'd do a little video on the subject of palpitation, palpitations are
really common symptom that I see in my clinic and majority of palpitations are
not serious, the big worry when people experienced palpitation is whether they
may have a heart rhythm disturbance even if they have a heart rhythm disturbance
most heart rhythm disturbances are not serious so that's a little bit of
reassurance the first thing I'd like to talk about is what is a palpitation I
suppose the palpitation is a
awareness of one's heart beat to the extent that it feels abnormal so the
heart could be beating normally but is sensed abnormally now there are many
normal causes of palpitations
so for example if you were walking down a dark alley in someone jumps out that
would cause palpitation that would cause the heart to beat very fast and that would
be spelled as a palpitation the bet doesn't signify a problem with the heart
itself the heart is just doing what it's meant to do it's beating closed in
response to the adrenaline that circulate around the body similarly
anxiety stress can cause publication
publication people who drink a lot of caffeine alcohol can cause palpitation
exercise can obviously so these are the kind of sort of normal things that can
cause palpitations we don't see anything to be worried about then there are
various heart rhythms that can various abnormal heart rhythms and one of the
first thing to try and work out whether the publication is just because of
something else or whether it's an intrinsic part of the problem and there
are a few things that very few clues that you can get if your publication of
mainly occurring when you also lying in bed you know her lying down after a busy
day in the early morning when you're still in bed than that signifies that
it's unlikely to be a heart rhythm disturbances don't look at the time of
day they can occur at any time when you're getting the maddest certain time
every day then you you know this could be reflective of stress that you may or
may not be aware of a lot of people who are going through a breakup or something
like that
will experience the opposition and they're locked and come to me and say
well I you know I don't notice it at all during the daytime but when I come back
home and I lie in bed then I notice issues sometimes I wake up in the early
hours and I tell them that you know I think this is less likely to be a
hundred that disturbs the second thing to watch out for is the onset you know
if your heart rhythm of publications are gradual onset and that's less likely to
be a heart rhythm disturbance heart rhythm disturbances just like that and
and they've been very sudden onset
and they're generally very sudden offsets that when they go away just
within a few seconds
within a second whereas people who have another cause such as stress or anxiety
than the offset is much slower there are other things to be aware of the the rich
that the heart is beating out is important because usually you know if
the heart is beating a hundred and sixty beats per minute then that's more likely
to be a heart rhythm disturbance but not always
and irregularities really important so worried about your publications always
work working out whether the heart rhythm is regularly it's a regular
rhythm it's generally less likely to be a hard rhythm disturbance although there
is there are a few episodes which can be regular but they tend to be very fast
onset and sudden lots that what else
I think it's important things now it does in association with chest
discomfort or if there's an association with blackouts or something else then
that's obviously serious and it's important to get that checked out I want
to just check out a few beats of different competition just so you know
so let's check them out
became the first one is the normal heartbeat again you will notice that
it's nice and slow and nice and regular ok now the second one is something
called atrial fibrillation which is when the top two chambers of the heart the
atria stopped working that's an abnormal heart rhythm it's not a dangerous heart
rhythm it's an intermediate does carry with it
small risk of causing strokes but it is always worth getting checked out if
you're experiencing something like this and then
you can see that that that was normal and then suddenly became phones and
became irregular and then went off that's typically relation ok here's
another one and this is called in Escherichia supraventricular tachycardia
and this is a more common heart rhythm disturbance and younger people's all
those can occur in older people as well but generally some people can habit from
a very young age again it's not a serious problem it's an inconvenient
problem it's worth checking out because it can now be cured
very few things in medicine that we actually but this is one of them say
it's well worth checking out who will work getting checked out if you
experience of the day so normal hundred themselves and then suddenly out
says here again now on this occasion you can notice that it was sudden it was
very fast and then the office it was a lot of people will actually find that's
you know pressing on your eyeballs are holding your nose and then blowing out
pressing on your neck back and get rid of these symptoms and there's a typical
vagal maneuvers that people use them they don't even realize they're actually
doing something so often I see people in a way so that the whole market an sdt
the most common type of altercation I experienced my neck when I see patients
is this so people will say they get this
see what happens here is that will people are experiencing is normal and
then something missus and then a big thought and that again that's typically
extra beats beats and then usually not dangerous and most people will find the
most noticeable at rest and not when they're doing things that actually if
you're getting this in the middle of the night and you're worried about it if you
go for a brick wall you'll find that gets rid of it all together these
everyone gets extra beat some people just noticed them a little bit more than
others so those are the main types of heart rhythm just now if you getting
harsher them disturbance what should you do well if you're getting something that
is making you feel very very uncomfortable then it's always worth
just calling an ambulance going to hospital otherwise most of the times you
could wait till the next day and go and see your GPU GPS should take a history
and then ideally organized because the answer is to capture the heart rhythm
disturbance when you're getting your symptoms on an ECG if the heart rhythm
is normal of the CG then that's that answers that question
disturbance and there are various bonuses that are available 24 hours
under seven days there's others that you can keep on for four to six weeks ended
really depends on how frequent symptoms are and where they used to do the
frequent enough of the monitors
marks sometimes the easiest thing is just to come to casualty happen ECG
there and then answer your questions if if your GP's concerned he'll probably
want to send you to a cardiologist like me what should I do well I always start
off St just trying to work out from the history as to what the symptoms they
represent could represent I don't listen to the horses and then I organized the
baseline ECG is normal then that's encouraging there's always again really
good to try and trap those publications on an ECG monitor so I normally give my
patients in ECG monitor to wear for one day or sometimes a week I also think
it's really useful to scan the heart because if you scan the card and you
find that the heart just dropped room or Linux comp well and it's not disease did
anyway then that's generally a very good sign and no matter what the publications
of the prognosis is very good
most publications are eminently treatable now and should be really no
cause for concern or you know last night's some of them easily controlled
with tap dance until Jen need any medication whatsoever and some of them
are actually a meaningful legacy cheese
that's about it really and this little video was useful to you if you have if
you'd like to know more about me but why do and more about heart health and peace
deal reached this is my websites which is an alternative you can also bring me
if you would like to organize if you have any concerns or thank you very much
for listening and goodnight