Heart Palpitations

My reason for seeking out spinal care might seem a bit unusual. Over the last 15 years, I would have these one-month periods where I would have heart palpitations - frequent spells that would last several hours a day with occasional days that were episode-free.

These one-month periods started out as few and far between: once in 1989, once in 1998 and again in 2001. These palpitations were not exactly fibrillations - which indeed can be dangerous - but more along the lines of skipped beats. Curiously, these would happen usually during times of rest and not during periods of strenuous exercise.

In early 2000 - a 'good year' - I was diagnosed with mild hypertension and was prescribed beta blockers to keep my blood pressure down. Then in 2002, I had a period that lasted much longer than one month. I became concerned and made a visit to a cardiologist. They could not find anything wrong on the stress test. I also wore a 24 hour monitor. Ironically, I was having a good day with the monitor on and nothing wrong was found then as well.

I reasoned that the problem might be neurologically related, since the palpitation episodes would usually be temporarily remedied by massaging out knots in my back.

In early 2003, I decided to pursue the Upper Cervical avenue of therapy. Over the course of the year, the recovery was gradual - sometimes seeming to be a 3-steps forward, 1-step back progression. Apparently, because of the correction process, parts of the body that were compensating for lack of alignment were disoriented by the sudden correction. At these times, there would be occasional symptoms that appeared as a relapse (the 1-step back referred to above).

But now - I'm almost at the 3 week holding pattern stage - I haven't had any episodes for almost 3 months now. Upper Cervical Care is one of those therapies that - if you stay with it - can be quite effective.

-Jack, 53