re: Oldest son going in today to see the cardiologist

There are many, many causes of an irregular heartbeat.

A very common one is also one that is of no concern.

This is the ever popular pvc, or premature ventricular contraction.

This is where it feels as if the heart skips a beat. It really doesn't skip a beat, it just fires a bit early and then pauses to make up for it. There are many causes of pvcs.

They are episodic. They can happen during exercise. Often times patients get anxious becuase the heart sometimes feels like it is pounding. Caffeine is a big cause of these is many people and so you see many cutting out caffeine for this reason.

They will do tests to make sure there is no structural abnormality causing this, and if so, if pretty much is a totally benign thing. No doubt that wrestlers being wrestlers often do things to keep their weight down that can cause this.

I get these not infrequently. I have cut out the caffeine which has almost totally gotten rid of them but find when I overtrain, I can sometimes get them.

Let the cardiologist rule out all the other potentially dangerous problems and make sure that there is not a structural component causing this, but there is a very good chance it is just pvcs.

However, I am not a cardiologist or a primary care doctor.

Anyways, hope it is just the occasional run of pvcs and everything is ok.