Cindi
I have had what is either what is considered an irregular heart beat and while it is doing this for a couple of seconds, it happens to beat faster than my normal heart beat and I can actually feel it. The 1st time it happened, I was 32, I was lying down and I put my husband's hand over my heart and he could feel it...of course he couldn't hear it...but because it happens inside me, there is a sense that I can hear it as well. I went to the dr. then sent to a cardiologist....wore a little black box for 24 hours so they could monitor the heart...yep they saw a blip or two..though I had to explain that there were days that it happened more often...and at first it seemed to be just lying down and then it was any given time of day...it turned out that I do have a fast heart beat, which I was kind of aware of anyway, averages about 90 to 100...occasionally, just over a hundered...but with what seems to be a failry fast heart beat that I have had as long as I can remember, these heart palpitations, irregular heart bets or whatever they are happen even when my heart beat has been as low as 72 so don't think it has anything to do with it....ultimately, the cardiologist said I had what was known as "innocent heart palpitations"....says that one of the doors (think it's the atrial) is lazy...so as the blood rushes in, it doesn't close as soon as it should and a bit more blood gets in there and when the contraction happens to push the blood through the other door, there is a thumpity thump, thump, thump to it....believe it or not, that is how it was explained to me...he said that President Reagan had them for years and has had no problems.....was told this in 1985, long before Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimers....and remember he's in his nineties....anyway, he wanted me to take beta blockers...supposedly it was to correct the (electical) message from the brain that was causing this to happen...I took one and as I was normally a high energy person, that one, that day caused be to feel lethargic and out of sorts...can't be that way in what I do for a living and didn't want to feel that way anyway so talked with my doctor and he agreed that I had decided to wein off the medication as you can't just stop them....well fast forward to now, 18 yrs later, still have them, mostly daily, intensity varies daily, but one thing I know, I'm still here and the only time they really get my attention is when the intensity is higher and it lasts maybe couple seconds longer than any one episode...cause I'm thinking, hey, I have to get back into rythm! and just like that, it goes back to normal......I have no dizziness from it...a little adrenalin rush now and then...however, insurance or not, I think you should have certain things rules out, one of them could be hypothyroid, they say it is one of the most underdiagnosed conditions (mostly in women I think) and one of the easiest to treat...the other is hyperthyroidism...of course it could be a number of things, but the good thing about finding out in many cases is that it is something like the thyroid which is very easy to manage, but hypothyroidism, I've been told and read that left unattended for way too long can lead to death because it regulates so many things in our bodies, body temperature, and heart....so as far as your not having insurance...if you are working then in my state, Calif, they have these health expos at least once a year where you pay a very small price ($20 to $40) for fairly comprensive blood work up and then you can go to a dr. with it and just pay for the dr. visit.....otherwise, if you aren't working at all, your state should have some kind of health coverage as an interim...though in some states it may only be for urgent care...like you are complaining of chest pains or whatever....you can do some checking and I believe you can find something...the main thing is to get it properly diagnosed.....cause anything left unattended long enough, even dental care, can cause much bigger problems that can lead to death....my intention here is not to scare to unnecessarily...but rather to get you to find some creative way to get the dr. visit and bloodwork tests, etc...so that you can deal with whatever it is that you have which believe it or not, in so many cases is better than dealing with the "completely" unknown which can drive you nuts cause your mind considers all the things it can be and with proper diagnosis it is likely one thing which means you would worry needlessly about things that weren't even applicable......at least that is what happended to me......and I have insurance.....just not crazy about going to the dr...by the way, if they do the bloodwork and nothing definative shows on the thyroid, it doesn't mean it's not, I understand it took a couple of years to get a definative on whether it was going to be Hypo or Hyperthroid...mine was known as Hishimoto's disease...in other words, hypothyroid...good luck...by the way, I am not a doctor, just a patient like you.....