Palpitation is the awareness of your heart beating and may suggest that there is an underlying heart rhythm disturbance.
The sensation is sometimes described as a fluttering in the chest, butterflies in the stomach or pounding in the chest.
It can last from just a few seconds to days at a time, either continuously or intermittently. If these episodes are troublesome it is often good to try and get an ECG done to record the heart rhythm during a bout of palpitations.
In some cases palpitations are not caused by an abnormal heart rhythm and are just an awareness of your normal heart beat.
Isolated, innocent and bothersome extra heart beats can be treated with tablets and sometimes by ablation. If after testing the extra heart beats are innocent and not bothersome then they can be ignored.