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So, folks who have known me for a while may be aware that I have a weird but generally benign heart condition: I've had frequent heart palpitations since my mid-twenties. Not a huge deal (as these things go, I guess?), I've been put on heart monitors a few times and while the first time I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation the second, much longer and more advanced monitoring concluded nah, it's just harmless palpitations. Which, cool. I definitely prefer that to a-fib, which is actually scary and potentially life-threatening because it can cause stroke due to blood pooling in one of your valves.
Anyway. The nearly ten years since this started happening to me have been a progressive journey of figuring out what brings on the palpitations, because even if they're harmless they're jolting and uncomfortable and generally suck (for those who've never had one, it feels like your heart sort of doubles-up on a beat or jumps).
Things I have learned cause me to have palpitations:
- Coffee
- Black tea
- Green tea
- White tea
- Even the smallest degree of dehydration
- Possibly stress?
- Too much sodium
- Black licorice
- Licorice root (as found in many herbal teas)
Now, the last two sound kind of weird, but I knew my mom had the same issue (my mom's whole family basically has this thing with the palpitations), and someone somewhere, sometime, had at one point said something like how that made sense that I couldn't have black licorice because it made your heart beat faster or something. I forget, now. But today I was flipping through news articles on my phone, and I found this:
FDA Issues Pre-Halloween Warning About Black Licorice.
Turns out for people over 40 (keep in mind that I've had this problem since I was 25, but, whatever, my family's weird) "the candy contains enough of the sweetening compound glycyrrhizin — derived from the licorice root — to significantly lower the body's potassium levels," causing problems with heart arrhythmia.
My mom has somewhat lately developed a weird condition where her body can't absorb potassium. Which I am now thinking might possibly be related to the glycyrrhizin sensitivity. And the dehydration and sodium-intake things, of course, would be related to electrolyte/potassium processing as well. So... that's a thing to talk to my doctor about, potentially.
Anyway. The nearly ten years since this started happening to me have been a progressive journey of figuring out what brings on the palpitations, because even if they're harmless they're jolting and uncomfortable and generally suck (for those who've never had one, it feels like your heart sort of doubles-up on a beat or jumps).
Things I have learned cause me to have palpitations:
- Coffee
- Black tea
- Green tea
- White tea
- Even the smallest degree of dehydration
- Possibly stress?
- Too much sodium
- Black licorice
- Licorice root (as found in many herbal teas)
Now, the last two sound kind of weird, but I knew my mom had the same issue (my mom's whole family basically has this thing with the palpitations), and someone somewhere, sometime, had at one point said something like how that made sense that I couldn't have black licorice because it made your heart beat faster or something. I forget, now. But today I was flipping through news articles on my phone, and I found this:
FDA Issues Pre-Halloween Warning About Black Licorice.
Turns out for people over 40 (keep in mind that I've had this problem since I was 25, but, whatever, my family's weird) "the candy contains enough of the sweetening compound glycyrrhizin — derived from the licorice root — to significantly lower the body's potassium levels," causing problems with heart arrhythmia.
My mom has somewhat lately developed a weird condition where her body can't absorb potassium. Which I am now thinking might possibly be related to the glycyrrhizin sensitivity. And the dehydration and sodium-intake things, of course, would be related to electrolyte/potassium processing as well. So... that's a thing to talk to my doctor about, potentially.
