My heart skips a few beats occasionally – is it dangerous?

My heart skips a few beats occasionally – is it dangerous?

Skipping of heart beats occasionally may not be much dangerous. Skipping of heart beats can occur in two ways – (1) by absence of a regular expected beat (2) a premature beat is not felt, but the compensatory pause after that is noted. If either of these occur once in a way, it may not be of great significance. But if frequency increases, it could be rarely a harbinger of more serious rhythm disturbances.

An ECG recorded during the episode will clarify what type of rhythm disturbance is present. If it is transient and not long enough to get recorded on a usual ECG, one can opt for a 24 hour Holter recording, which will record and analyze rhythm disturbances over a day. If still infrequent, external loop recorders which record events and even transmit them to a central server over a period of routine daily activities may be up to one week can be used.