Heart skips a beat . . .

GiddyupTim

Help, please.
My wife is training for her third marathon (Chicago, October) in about a year. She has developed an arrhythmia -- or, at least, she notices her heart is skipping beats, more than a few times a day.
She is going to the doctor.
But, has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything anyone can tell me about it?
Thanks

fabiomuralha

Just an advice , stop all activities and send she to see a doctor... Heart problems are always serious problems...

barrpc

I have agree with fabio....stop and wait for doctor to chime in. I didn't even have heart problems and because of my age I got a doctor to order a heart scan for me just to be on the safe side. It's easier to train if you know what is going on (or not) in there.

GiddyupTim

Thanks guys.
She called the doctor pretty soon after this started, and the doctor's office told her to get to the ER immediately.
She went and they checked her out. Her electrolytes weren't low and she wasn't having a heart attack.
She is scheduled to wear a Holter monitor for a day later this week (a portable ECG). But, in the meantime, she is very stressed by the whole situation. I wanted to know if anyone had any information on this kind of thing, or any experience with it.

WebbyShoo

I have no advice or experience with it but I wanted to say I hope all works out and that it's an isolated issue due to stress or overtraining, my thoughts are with you guys.

RunnerElizabeth

My running partner had the opposite kind of arrhythmia where they put the holter monitor on her and it turned out she had something like 10, 000 extra heartbeats a day. She went through a series of meds (beta blockers I think) one that made her fast that made her hair fall out, 1 didn't work, 1 helped the problem but made her slow and gave her all kinds of aches and pains. She finally agreed to a procedure to fix it and 6 months later, she's fine, she went to the cardiologist last week for her followup. She's running fine now too, she still can't keep up with me, but I think that's because all those long slow miles she took me on made me faster.

So you and your wife need to hang in there, try and relax and let the dr's figure it out. These problems are generally fixable through meds or procedures. Just do your homework do some of your own research once you have a better idea of a diagnosis so you understand what's going on.

natalie412

I developed this last fall when training for my first half, and going through some personal stress. I was told and concur that it was PVCs - Premature Ventricular Contractions, a benign condition where your heart actually beats a little early (and hard) and that results in a gap before the next beat which makes it seem like it is skipping a beat. Sometimes for me it would happen every 3-4 beats and go on for an hour or more, and was uncomfortable. I went off caffeine for awhile, and that seemed to help a little, but then it ended up resolving on its own. I get it very rarely, and drink copious amounts of coffee!

Probably just a benign sign of overtraining. I opted not to get further testing since I pay out of pocket (very high deductible insurance), and my symptoms resolved on their own. I am now training for my third half, and have had no problems at all.

Research it and if you think it fits, you will be reassured.

PeteWhoLikesToRunAlot

I've experienced this from time to time if I'm either extremely overtired (I tend to get significant bouts of insomnia, where I'll get 2-3 hrs a night for a week or more), or have had too much coffee in response to the aforementioned insomnia. Any non-running physiological things going on recently which might explain it?