Hi What causes rapid heart beat. I have had these attacks every now and then. You start on a nomal beat and it feels like you skip a beat and the heart starts  to beat rapidly. One symptom is pressure around the neck and shoulders. I can bring it back to normal by raising my arms above my head and take deep breaths and its gone. Yesterday it took about 20 min. to shake it off. What is the cause. I have been for a cardio gram and ultra sound and everything is OK. Thanks
Hello and thank you for using Chat Doctor. I carefully read your question and I understand your concern. I will try to explain you something and give you my opinion. You should know that your symptoms has to do with rhythm issues. There are some electrical impulses that generates from parts of the heart different from normal sinus rhythm. They cause premature heart contraction that it's not a normal one followed by a pause and then a normal heart contraction. This might be an extra systolic beat or other kind of arrhythmia like atrial fibrillation, supra ventricular tachycardia etc. It is quite known in cardiology that one way to m\u00e9nage this rhythm issues is with what we call legal manors like inhaling and keeping the breath. They function in a lot of cases. The causes of this rhythm issue might be different like stress, excessive coffee consumption or pathologies like anemia, hyperthyroidism or electrolyte imbalance. This all might happen in a quite healthy heart. If I was your treating doctor I will recommend a holder rhythm monitoring to see what happens with your rhythm and then we can find how to control it. Hope I was helpful. Wish you good health. Best regards, Chat Doctor.