The first time I experienced a fluttering of my heart (to the point that it was noticeable anyway) was back in 2006. I’ll never forget the scenario either.  I was sitting at my office desk and had just found out how much money I owed to taxes (because I had my own business, I would pay taxes quarterly).  While the exact amount I don’t recall, it was much higher than I expected, and was enough to get my heart racing uncontrollably.

I could feel my heart beating very hard.  It wasn’t necessarily fast, but more like a pounding inside my chest.  And it scared me since I’ve never experienced that before.  So after 20 minutes of the hard pounding, I grew concerned and called a local nurse who recommended I go to the hospital.  Since I was the only one home, I got in the car and drove their immediately.

Fast forward to the diagnosis part, the doctors couldn’t determine exactly what it was, and said that it’s somewhat normal for people to experience heart beats like that.  They had me wear a halter monitor for 2 days, and even put me through a stress test where I run on a treadmill while connected to wires and stuff that monitor my heart.  In both cases, the palpitations were noticeable, but according to the doctors, not life threatening.

In the end they attributed it to stress.  Now initially I would have agreed, since the trigger seemed to be the day I found out about the high taxes I had to pay.  But the strong heart beating continued on and off for months after that.  And now years later, though not was frequent, I still occasionally feel them.  So I plan to continue monitoring it on my own and will do what I need to if I feel the symptoms getting worse.