A blog by Thomas Boto, co-founder of Natural Rhythm
The Beginning
This whole thing started It started a few years ago after my first son was born. My wife and I had recently moved to Texas from Virginia. Once we arrived in Texas, we hit the ground running and quickly bought a house, then I started my new job, and then for some reason I felt compelled to immediately began a major remodeling project with the help of my grandfather. I would work all day and then come home to a quick dinner, then jump right back to work on the remodeling project, all while our two month old screamed in the background because of a reflux issue. So, after a few weeks of hardly any sleep my heart apparently got knocked off rhythm and I developed an irregular heartbeat.
Cardiologist Bound
It started off with just an occasional hard thud that I would casually notice while working on the house. Then once I realized that my heart was actually skipping, it had my full attention. And the skips began to escalate. It got so bad that I almost passed out and thought I was dying of a heart attack at the ripe old age of 28. My wife was kind enough to drive me to the doctor, where an EKG revealed… absolutely nothing. However, just for good measure, my doctor referred me to a cardiologist. When I visited, paramedics where wheeling out a guy on a stretcher who apparently had a heart attack. Not a good first impression. The cardiologist did all sorts of tests on me: a blood test, EKG, stress test, cat scan, holter monitor. You name it, I probably did it. The results finally came in, I had occasional Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs) and Premature Atrial Contractions (PACs). Unfortunately, occasional turned into 1000’s a day. But on that day, my cardiologist gave me 25mg of Toprol to take if needed and set me on my way.
Personal Life and Work
For the record: when all this occurred, I was 28 years old and weighted about 160 Lbs. (I am about 5’11”), so I wasn’t exactly your typical heart problem candidate. I ran most days and was even preparing for my first Triathlon. I ate fine, but like most people, I probably should have been eating more vegetables. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I had even cut out most soft drinks since I was preparing for a triathlon. My life was pretty bland by most standards, so I could not point to any one thing that would cause my irregular heat beat, but the more I thought about the palpitations, the more it happened. It was horrible. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t work. It made me irritable and tired. It began to consume my thoughts.
Medicine and Supplements
I am not a big fan of taking medicine if I don’t have to, so I resisted taking the Toprol for as long as possible. But there were nights when the palpitations were overwhelming (it probably wasn’t helping that I would always be checking my pulse to see how far apart the skips occurred). So I would end up taking the Toprol. It eventually got to the point where I was taking the Toprol everyday. For those of you who have never heard of Toprol, it is a beta-blocker that slows down your heart rate and stabilizes your blood pressure. It worked at first, but it made me real sluggish and melancholy. I hated it. And once I realized that all it did was essentially lower my blood pressure, I slowly weened my self off of it (with the permission of my cardiologist) and began to look for alternative ways to lower my blood pressure. And that began my obsession with finding a cure for irregular heartbeats.
Research Obsession
I started off by googling “palpitations” and other words related to an irregular heart beat, but all of the results pointed to big medical sites like WebMD that simply outlined “palpitation” symptoms and told me that death was possible. Not good. And once I began looking into natural remedies for palpitations, I kept running into crazy suggestions, like “Snake Gourde Paste” that seemed too bizarre to be real. What I didn’t find were any of the definitive answers that I was looking for.
So that kickstarted my quest to sort through all the junk and get to the bottom of this whole irregular heart beat thing…which ultimately resulted in this blog. Along the way, I have figured out some things that have worked for me, which I hope work for you or anyone else battling an irregular heartbeat, anxiety, or stress.
My Goal
The goal of this site is simple: address the issues of anxiety, worry, depression, stress, fear and heart palpitations and then effectively and efficiently banish them from our lives forever. Topics include: Health and Nutrition, Fitness, Productivity, Stress Management, and even Religion. I would love to get your feedback and hear any remedies that may have worked for you or anyone else you know. All I ask is that you keep your comments constructive and remember that this is not a medical website. Hope some of this information helps.
To get you started, here are a few of the more popular posts: