Conversation: The conversation between human and AI assistant.
[|Human|] I have been suffering from heart palpitations for more than 3 years, but now they have gotten worse i-e 120-140 bpm with a simplest activity (standing,walking etc). Recently, i noticed blood in my stool.My question is, are these symptoms interconnected?
[|AI|]  Dear Patient, Thank you very much for your question. According to American heart association, normal healthy heart rate is 60-100 beats per minute when you are relaxed and not engaged in a physical activity. If your heart rate is 100 bpm or above while you are resting and relaxed it is called as tachycardia. However, If you engage in any physical activity your heart rate can race up. That is normal.  Subtracting your age from 220 you can find out your maximum heart rate. For instance, If you are 50 years old, your maximum heart rate is 220-50= 170 bpm. Anyway in your condition, I would recommend that you consult your family doctor for a physical examination and proper consultation. I am sure your family doctor will direct you to a normal ECG test and stress ECG or exercise ECG test to rule out some pathologies appearing during physical activities. Also, he or she may direct you to a holder monitor test if necessary to rule out some arrhythmias.  Conditions like atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter can cause very high pulse rate like yours and sometimes for that cause is hyperthyroidism. Therefore, you might need to check your thyroid function too.  Concerning your blood in stool, I think it might be as a result of gastrointestinal pathology and I hardly believe it is related to your high pulse rate.Also, I want to ask you the color of blood you noticed on your stool. Red color fresh blood on stool can be due to hemorrhoids or due to hard stool passage while black stool can be as a result of hemorrhage due to ulcer disease, ulcerative colitis etc. In order to diagnose these conditions, again you have to do a stool test and explain all other symptoms you have. You may need to undergo an endoscopy if your physician wants to rule out above-mentioned diseases.  I think your blood in stool may be related to a gastrointestinal pathology. Therefore, I will highly recommend that you consult your family doctor for proper consultation, diagnosis and treatment.  I hope that I've answered your question. If you have any further questions, please let me know. Good luck!