I am a 22 yr old female. I am 5'9 and weigh 189. For the past year i have been having random heart palpitations. It happens for a split second and happens when im washing dishes,exercising or lying down. It happens about once a week, or every few weeks. I was told recently my cholesterol is 135. What could be causing them?

I am a 22 yr old female. I am 5'9 and weigh 189. For the past year i have been having random heart palpitations. It happens for a split second and happens when im washing dishes,exercising or lying down. It happens about once a week, or every few weeks. I was told recently my cholesterol is 135. What could be causing them?

Heather,

That is the $64 Million Dollar question!!!;) What is causing them? I think we'd all love to know.

First know, that in 99.9% of the cases (especially in your age group) it is benign. However, I never think it is a bad idea to get it checked out. So many different things could be causing it such has low potassium, low magnesium, you could have an iron deficiency. Maybe you take birth control pills and it is a hormonal issue, etc. Generally what they do is to run an EKG on you in your doctor's office to see if they can catch it there (in my case it NEVER happens there). They may then ask you to wear a monitor for 24 hours and those monitors usually catch the palps and tell the doctor what type they are. For good measure they will then run an echocardiogram which is just a sonogram of the heart to make sure it is normal in its structure. And that is about all they do to make sure there is nothing "bad" going on.

I have had an EKG done, and you're right nothing came up. They said it was a perfectly normal heart beat. I am worried that wearing something for 24 hrs wouldnt help wither considering the fact that I dont get them every day or even every other day. I could only remember maybe twice when its happened a few days in a row over the past 15months. But thank you for your reply. I definately feel better about them. Of course I always assumed the worst and had no idea how common they were. Thanks!