TY - JOUR T1 - A patient's diary: episode 19 — A shocking experience JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 518 LP - 519 DO - 10.3399/bjgp08X319576 VL - 58 IS - 552 AU - John Salinsky Y1 - 2008/07/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/58/552/518.abstract N2 - The palpitations started this morning while I was mowing the lawn. It's quite a heavy machine but you do get proper stripes which I don't believe is possible with the electric kind, quite apart from the possible dangers of being run down or electrocuted.Anyway, I had just completed the bumpy section in the middle of the back lawn when I felt an irregular knocking in my chest, a bit like a car backfiring, and my heart was pounding away at a terrific rate. I realised at once that the knocking was coming from my heart which must have somehow slipped out of gear with the force of my exertions. I really wasn't expecting anything to go wrong with my heart because I have always been so careful with it, eating only Tulip Margarine (high in Benecol and Polyunsaturates) with my toast and doing my exercises religiously every morning. And more recently, persuading Nurse Katie to let me go on Superstatin because although my risk is still only 5% of a heart attack in 10 years, in my view it's foolish to take any risk at all if you can avoid it. Perhaps I should have had one of those implantable defibrillators fitted to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Amazing how one never thinks of these simple precautions until it is too late.I sat down on the garden seat, called weakly for Hilda and tried to find my pulse. I called again but there was no response. Then I remembered that Hilda had gone to do the Saturday shopping while I got on with the … ER -