What should I do about heart palpitations?
Most of the time palpitations are a benign variation of normal and do not represent pathology, but occasionally they can. ECGs (EKG) are useful for detecting most arrhythmic abnormalities (and can also indicate other problems), but the problem is, some arrhythmia’s are only detectable when they are in that pathway. Basically, at the time she did the ECG, if it was just a short trace, the ECG may not have detected it. The most useful thing for your Doctor to do would have been a holter monitor study/24 hour ECG or cardiac memo. This traces the heart for a longer period of time and gives a better analysis. It wouldn’t hurt for her to do blood work either and also check your thyroid levels. If all these tests come back negative then it likely means that the palpitations and/or ectopic heart beats which you are having are a normal variant. Things like stress/anxiety and caffeine can make them worse. If you feel your symptoms are worse than before then definitely see your Doctor again and a
