I went to my cardiologist last week for a medical check-up. The week that my mom had coronary angiogram (the procedure to assess the percentage of blockage in her heart arteries), I was having “odd” heartbeats. It’s like one minute I was okay then all of a sudden, I would feel two rapid heartbeats. This happened several times during the day.

My doctor asked me if I’ve been drinking coffee. I said I’m not really a coffee drinker, but the previous weeks prior to my visit to his clinic, I’ve been drinking coffee (one cup a day only) because I wanted to increase my water intake. He said that might account for what I was feeling, which he called “skip beat.” Caffeine might have triggered my skip beats because I’m not used to it.

I’ve stopped drinking coffee for more than a week now, and true enough, I’m not experiencing those skip beats anymore. Should I have skip beats again, I’m supposed to take Inderal 10 mg as needed and up to three times a day only. He also made me undergo blood chemistry tests, the results of which will be discussed in my follow-up check-up. My ECG was perfectly normal, by the way.