UPMC Cardiologist: When is an Irregular Heartbeat a Concern?

Heart and Vascular Institute, UPMC
Our hearts are amazing organs, and we can often take them for granted. They steadily pump away, rhythmically beating life into our bodies. But what happens when your heartbeat becomes irregular, erratic, or even skips a beat? These incidents are called heart palpitations, and for most people, heart palpitations are a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence. However, some may have dozens of these heart flutters a day, sometimes so strong that they feel like a heart attack.
A recurring irregular heartbeat is known as an arrhythmia and it’s important to have any irregular feeling near your heart or in your chest, heartbeat, or rhythm evaluated. Most palpitations are caused by a harmless hiccup in the heart’s rhythm. But these minor hiccups may be a sign of a problem in the heart or elsewhere in the body.
During arrhythmia, the heart either beats too slow (bradycardia), too fast (tachycardia), or irregularly (atrial fibrillation). Almost everyone experiences an occasional skipped heartbeat, fluttering, or racing heartbeat. While most events are harmless, some people have arrhythmias that are bothersome and sometimes dangerous.
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