What causes heart palpitations while sitting, standing or lying down?

Posted on Mon, 23 Nov 2015

Question: I can hear and feel my heartbeat when sitting, standing or lying down. What causes this?

Answered by Dr. Ilir Sharka (27 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
I recommend performing some tests:

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Welcome and thank you for asking on HCM!

Regarding your concern I would explain that your symptoms seem to be related to palpitations and possible cardiac arrhythmia.

Anxiety could also mimic this clinical situation.

I recommend consulting with your GP for a careful physical examination, a resting ECG and cardiac ultrasound, a chest X Ray study and some blood lab tests:

- complete blood count ( possible anemia)
- PCR and sedimentation rate
- fasting glucose
- blood electrolytes
- kidney and liver function tests
- thyroid hormone levels (possible thyroid gland dysfunction), etc. To exclude other possible metabolic causes.

An ambulatory 24-48 hours ECG monitoring is necessary to examine better your heart rhythm and its trends during the day to rule in\ out possible cardiac arrhythmia.

Hope to have been helpful!

Feel free to ask any other questions whenever you need!

Best regards!

Dr. Iliri

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar