mmrrzz: silent means asymptomatic and nothing more. The only way to know it is afib for sure is an EKG that shows no P wave, a squiggkly line in place of the P wave and an irregular heart beat. You "could" learn to take your pulse and pick up the irregular heart beat. petey

Thanks for the reply Petey, I do take my pulse and can detect irregularities and my afib was verified by EKG at a time I was having an episode. I was wondering about the palpitations without HB irregularities. They are not normal, so if they are not afib, what could they be?

Hi mmrrzz. I don't know what causes your 'harder' heartbeats, but I want to suggest one possibility that comes from my own experience and that is a shortage of potassium. For years I'd been aware of my heartbeat when I lay down in bed at night. That is, my heartbeat seemed 'harder' and got my attention. For most of those years I thought it was normal.

Then I developed intermittent afib. While researching it on www.affibbers.org, I read that being aware of your heartbeat at night is usually a sign potassium shortage. I was stunned and thankful to learn a possible cause.

I checked on the internet and found that tomatoes have a lot of potassium so I took a tablespoon of tomato paste, which I had on hand, an hour or so before going to bed and, sure enough, no awareness of my heartbeat!

Since then I've made sure I eat some high potassium foods each day. I'm pretty successful at reducing my nighttime heartbeat awareness - which is great.

I want to emphasize that it's possible to get too much potassium and this is very dangerous. Several years ago I decided to take potassium supplements. When my blood test showed elevated potassium, my doctor was alarmed. I had to stop taking the supplements immediately and return in a week for another blood test.

One more thing - the affibbers.org site said it's important to get the right ratio of salt and potassium you ingest each day. The site gives the recommended ratio. I don't remember the exact ratio or I would tell you.

Your 'harder' heartbeats may have absolutely nothing to do with potassium shortage, but I wanted to mention this possibility, especially since I was so grateful to learn about it.

BTW, you can search "potassium and awareness of heartbeat" on the internet and learn a good bit about it.

I get the hard beat too. Mine come somtimes when I get too upset or by exercising. Mine seem to be benign according to my doc. But, I notice that sometimes the benign hard beats will sometimes bring on the faster afibs.

Thanks JannMoorr - A blood test showed my potassium level was marginally low. I started having an occasional banana and drinking a low sodium V8 in the morning. The low sodium type has 700mg of potassium. Maybe I should be drinking it at night or twice a day. I'll try it tonight.

Also thanks,kasandra - occasionally my afib has transitioned from these 'hard' heartbeats so I can understand what you mean. The last time I had afib was while watching TV right before bedtime. I put my face in ice water serveral times and it stopped in about 15 minutes.

Mitch

After janmoorr mentioned low potassium as a possible cause of 'hard' heartbeats, I started drinking a can of low sodium V8 in the evening (700 mg of potassium) about an hour before bedtime. It's been only 3 days but no reoccurence yet. Here's hoping!
Mitch

Really? Ice water, I hope I don't need to, but I will try that next time.
Thank you Mitch.

My non threatening harder heartbeat comes all through the day, when I get them, not much at night, however, I have not been drinking enough water and was just told I am dehydrated a bit. I will check the internet and see if that could be causing a problem.

A banana could not hurt either. :-)

I was told that adequate hydration is critical. I try to drink lots of water each day and I think it helps keep the afib at bay. The potassium in a banana is less than 500mg (according to the web) and I get 700mg in a small can of V8 (low sodium type). I'll admit the bananas taste better.
Mitch

I will start drinking more water and get the V8.
Thank you again.

Mitch (mmrrzz), thanks for the update. I'd wondered if you'd tried the potassium. I'm glad you had three nights without those hard heartbeats; hope that's continuing. If not, consider increasing your daily potassium intake.

After reading your initial question I decided to do a little research on potassium that I'd been putting off - thanks for motivating me. Thought I'd post some of what I found in case others have hard heartbeats during the daytime or night.

Before I do, I want to tell kasandra that recently I noticed I have hard heartbeats during the daytime. Now whenever I do, I eat some potassium-rich food and my heartbeat soon calms down.

I've decided to increase my daily potassium - trying to get ahead of those annoying had heartbeats and maybe it will help with my afib too. I feel free to do this because I just learned that the recommended daily intake (RDI) for potassium is 4700mg or 4.7g!!! I had no idea it's so high. I certainly don't think I'm getting that much each day. I'm going to do a better job of tracking my intake from food, at least for a few days.

I also was surprised, and very pleased, at how difficult it is to get an overdose from food. I like a lot of the foods that are potassium-rich so I'll enjoy the increase. I want to repeat the caution that you can get a dangerous potassium overdose from foods, but apparently it's not as easy to do as I thought.

Everywhere I looked there were cautions and warnings about taking potassium supplements without a doctor's supervision. There were also warnings about potassium interactions with health conditions (eg., kidney problems) that can create an overdose. Some prescription drugs can contribute to too little potassium - that's another thing for us to consider. One of the best sites I found is: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/potassium-000320.htm/

While I was at it, I did a little research on salt/potassium ratio (need to do more to get a better idea of a good ratio). While everyone agreed too little potassium and too much salt can cause health problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure, no one mentioned the possibility of it causing arrhythmia or heart hardbeats, but I'm wondering if it could. Anyone know anything about this? Anyway, I keep my salt intake low (but I definitely make it a point to get some because it's an electrolyte) and am increasing my potassium intake.

BTW, Mitch (mmrrzz) and kasandra, earlier this year I read that adequate hydration is key to preventing stroke. I overdid it and got a low salt reading from my blood test. That got my doctor's attention. Getting all these electrolytes right is not easy for me. My last reading was OK and I'm still drinking a lot of water - just not so much.

jann

Jann, I'm happy to hear that the extra potassium is helping you during the day. I haven't had any yet but I'll keep it in mind. I'm still free of the night time 'hard beats' with my V8 at bedtime. I was told by my GP and Cardio that hydration is very important in avoiding reducing the onset of afib, and it seems to help me. I hadn't heard about the positive impact on stroke. Thanks for the warning about overdoing the hydration. What are your favorite high potassium foods (I know about bananas).
Mitch

Thank you so much jann, I never knew you could get any change in a test or a reaction from too much water. Unfortunately, I do not drink enough, but I am now working on adding much more and limiting my coffee. I also added a banana to my breakfast and a large glass of orange juice as well. Maybe I will see a change in these annoying hard beats. I always panic and wonder of they will bring on the afibs.

Thanks to this group, I am feeling I am being more proactive in my heart health.

Thank you,
Sandy

Re: too much water.

I worked for a staffing company years ago and one of my duties was administering drug tests. I had a guy come in early one morning so I could send him out on a job order that same morning. The guy fainted while I was doing the readings and I could not wake him up, so I called 911 and had him taken to the hospital.

A couple of hours later his mom and his sister came by to pick up his car. His mother told me that he had wanted that job so badly that he'd been drinking glass after glass of water all night and all morning so he could pass his drug test. I called the ER and yes, the Dx was water toxicity.

Mitch, glad those hard heartbeats haven't returned.

You asked about my favorite high-potassium foods. Right now I'm taking advantage of the supply of avocados, watermelons, tomatoes, and cantaloupes. Love them all. Year round I eat two uncooked dried prunes per day with a few raw walnuts or almonds - very good, but not as good as a few raisins with those nuts; I have to keep myself from living on those. I also really like salads made from dried beans, peas, and lentils for this time of year as well as chili, soups, and stews made from them in winter. In winter I put lima beans in vegetable soup and in summer I love fresh ones simply seasoned with butter or olive oil. I'm crazy about humus and make it with a type of chickpeas which reportedly don't cause the insulin spike of regular chickpeas; unfortunately, I've only found them at Indian grocery stores. Must mention basil pesto which I think tastes wonderful with many vegetables, salads, and soups; fresh basil has an amazing (to me) 462 mg potassium/2 tbsp. A few years ago I discovered quinoa and it quickly became one of my all-time favorite foods. I use it in place of pasta and rice. It's an excellent source of magnesium. I use it to make tabouleh (which also has high-potassium parsley and mint) instead of coucous. I could eat tabouleh everyday - well, nearly everyday, Wow, I just looked up parsley and it has 1080 mg of potassium in just two little sprigs. I eat a flllet of mahi mahi (416 mg potassium/4 -ounces) once a week because I've found a fantastic recipe for it and can get a package of frozen ones at Costco . Hope it's OK to put a link to the recipe - it's the recipe I love; without it the fish is just OK. This recipe can be used for any mild fish, and probably any strong fish. This summer I'm using fresh basil in it and I never add the celery salt - too much salt for me. I also stir a few bread crumbs into the topping.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/broiled-tilapia-parmesan/

Had a great time writing about my favorites. Love to hear about some of your own. Would like it if others will chime in, too.

Sandy,
I'd heard people can drink too much water - but I'd forgotten. Like you, I'm very grateful to the people who have knowledge about heart health and who share it on the internet. They've helped me in many crucial ways. I reduced my coffee but it took a long time.

OldManBear,
Thanks so very much for telling us about an actual case of water toxicity that you saw and helped with. You may have saved his life by calling 911. Also, thanks for using the term " water toxicity," which can make it easier to look up on the internet.

BTW, do you know that nighttime cameras took a picture of a black bear in the Grand Canyon last week? Seems they aren't usually there, but they may be moving about because of drought.