What Causes Intermittent Unnerving Pulsations Across The Stomach?

Posted on Sat, 23 Dec 2017

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Sat, 23 Dec 2017 Answered on

Fri, 25 May 2018 Last reviewed on

Question : My husband is 78 years old and has been having unerving pulsation across his stomach, up both sides of his body and down to his fingertips about 8 to 10 times daily for the past year. He has had MRI's and Ct's for skull, cervical, thoracic, heart and lung. All have come back negative for any problems (some arthritic issues due to age). All blood work has come back negative. All the doctors he has seen are stumpped. CP, cardiologist, neurologist, and psychiatric counseling. He has been on several different antianxiety drugs and mild tranquilizers. Nothing is helping. Any clue?

Answered by Dr. Ramesh Kumar (-3 hours later)

Brief Answer:
As pyschiatric clearance is there it could be palpitation also.

Detailed Answer:
Hi dear,
Firstly thanks for selecting health care magic to ask your query.

The feeling he is having may be due to palpitation.Palpitations can feel like in some cases a fluttering palpating murmuring ,or pounding in abdomen stomach,limbs and head also.

Suggestion-

I would prescibe you following tests
1) Thyroid profile- to rule out hyperthyroidism.
2)24 hour holter monitoring- will record the ECG continuously during a 24-hour or 48-hour period. If palpitation occurs during this period it will be recorded in ECG recording.

3) Serum electrolytes - a disturbance in serum electrolytes can cause palpitations , they can be corrected easily.

Please mention if these tests have already been done by cardiologist?

Hope i was helpful.
Thanks!

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Kampana

Follow up: Dr. Ramesh Kumar (13 hours later)

He was diagnosed with A-fib in XXXXXXX had an ablation done in July hoping it would take care of pulsation, it did not. Wore holter for 28 days in Oct, ran thyroid profile in Sep and vitamin B checked also. A-fib seems to have cleared after ablation and thyroid and vitamin B were fine. Every test that the various doctors could think of has been done. None of them have ever seem these kind of symptoms. He says they are not painful just alarming. They do not show up on any cardiac monitoring and all neuro scans show no nerve entrapment that could cause these sensations. GP, cardiologist and neurologist are all leaning towards anxiety, but pyschiatris feels it is more physical. We are at a loss of where to go from here.

Have not checked serum electrolytes. Will check into that.

Answered by Dr. Ramesh Kumar (38 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Follow up.

Detailed Answer:
Hello again my dear patient,
As he had already been cleared by various specialities doctors i hope you can understand the complexity of his case.
I would therefore suggest you to get a serum electrolyte levels done(Sodium and potassium balance is very important to maintain proper function of heart).Sometimes when we are under various superspecialities we miss some basic investigations(could be a possible culprit) and focus on high fi stuff.
So get it done and follow up with reports my dearं.
Keen to hear from you soon.
Regards!

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Raju A.T