Can you get palpitations with the menopause

The Mirena coil may help manage heavy periods during the menopause and can also be used as part of hormone replacement therapy HRT. Discover how the Menopause is a natural part of getting older, but it can cause symptoms that affect your daily life. Discover how to manage menopause symptoms.

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Home Health library Menopause summary Should you worry about heart palpitations in menopause? Medical reviewer: Dr Ann Nainan. Author: Dr Roger Henderson. Medically reviewed All of Healthily's articles undergo medical safety checks to verify that the information is medically safe. In this article. Heart palpitations and the menopause Up to 1 in 4 women experience significant palpitations during menopause, with many others having mild symptoms.

What do menopause palpitations feel like? What are the causes of heart palpitations? Your health questions answered Is the risk of heart disease increased during menopause? Answered by: Dr Roger Henderson. Was this article helpful? Yes No. During menopause, levels of the hormone estrogen rise and fall. By the end of menopause, your body will stop producing this hormone.

Changing estrogen levels can set off heart palpitations. Women can also experience palpitations during other times when hormone levels shift, like during their period or in pregnancy.

Palpitations in menopause often happen during hot flashes. See your doctor if your palpitations:. To diagnose heart palpitations, your doctor may refer you to a cardiologist. This type of doctor specializes in treating heart problems. Your doctor will start by asking about your overall health and any medicines you take. Your doctor will listen to your heart with a stethoscope. You might also get one or more of these heart tests:. Electrocardiogram: During this test , electrodes placed on your chest monitor the electrical activity in your heart.

This test can see if exercise sets off your palpitations. Holter monitor: You wear this device for one to three days. It continuously monitors your heart rhythm to help your doctor find any problems. Event monitor: This monitor records your heart rhythm for about a month. You push a button to start the recording whenever you feel palpitations starting.

You might also see a gynecologist if you have other symptoms of menopause. Palpitations caused by menopause are usually temporary.

Doctors believe this is because high estrogen levels before menopause protect the blood vessels from damage. Once estrogen production stops, this protection is lost, and your risk for a heart attack and stroke goes up. A healthy diet, exercise, and quitting smoking all help reduce this risk. In some women, palpitations might be an early warning of heart problems.

Is there something seriously wrong with me? Now, when I am talking about palpitations, I am talking about the fact that you feel as if your heart is fluttering. You could miss a beat sometimes , you think, "Oh, my heart's actually stopped beating. As always, the poor menopause gets blamed for everything, and sometimes, the symptoms you get are really not connected to the menopause at all.

So how do palpitations arise during the menopause? First one is obviously hormonal. We do know that falling oestrogen can affect the electrical system of your heart. And what happens there is that because the system gets jammed a little bit, you may find that your heart starts to race a little bit, or sometimes, two heartbeats can come really close together, and it makes you feel as if you've then missed a heartbeat.

So very often, that's your oestrogen affecting the way in which your heart works itself. We've got night sweats. This can be a big one, especially if you wake up first thing in the morning, and even before you half-opened your eyes, your heart starts to do this fluttering or fastness. And this very often is due to hydration. If you're getting night sweats or even if you're getting hot flushes in the evening, you're going to bed, and you're going through the night in a state of dehydration.

And we know that dehydration is a really big trigger for palpitations. It can also be due to an imbalance between your sodium and potassium. The body has a very fine balance between the two, and sometimes if they are out of balance, that in itself can affect your heartbeat, so it's important to sort of bear this one in mind.

Stress and anxiety generally, again, if we're stressed during the day, if we're anxious all the time, all that's happening here is that your nervous system is getting overexcited, it's shooting out adrenaline, and the adrenaline is starting to pump the heart. This is your classic fight-or-flight situation, and unfortunately, in the menopause, we end up in this situation on a regular basis, so that's a big contributory factor for the palpitations.

It can also just be general day-to-day life. You know, we're always stressed, if we're not sleeping , if we're fatigued , all these things can have an effect on our nervous system which in turn can trigger the palpitations.

If you're getting hot flushes , if you're getting the night sweats , and some women find that the palpitations are associated to the hot flush or the night sweats, so you'll get one and then the other. If you're getting these, then sage can be really helpful for a general treatment for hot flushes and night sweats , and this does tend to work quite quickly as well. We can look at water. Remember, dehydration will cause all sorts of things, so get plenty of water into your system on a regular basis.

And some women find that if they feel the palpitations coming on, if they get into that situation where they go, "Oh, here we go," that drinking some water at the very start of it can help to reduce its impact on you as well. Avoid things that are going to rev up the nervous system, and that is mainly caffeine.

I remember, as I explained before, the first time I experienced this, I was driving, and I really thought that something terrible was happening to me, and I was sitting in the car thinking, "I'm having a heart attack. And then I'm thinking, "No, I can't be having a heart attack. I'm too young for a heart attack. It was in the afternoon, and I don't drink coffee in the afternoon. I know it just doesn't sit well with me at all.

And I realised that for me, that really big hit of caffeine two hours down the line was enough to start off a series of palpitations. So really watch your coffee and your tea and your fizzy drinks as well. High-salt and sugar foods can do it too, so just be aware of those.

This is one of these times where if you get the palpitations at the same time every day, do your diary, with your food and your drinks, and you may find that there's a common link between them all, which will then help you to sort and deal with these much more easily.