Hi everyone, I am a 21 year old female and I am absolutely anxiety ridden over the possibility of me having SVT. I'll give you some back story.
When I first started drinking alcohol, wine specifically, I noticed my heart rate would jump to about 120 and this would last for at least 30 minutes. I put it off because I just thought I was allergic to wine like my aunt is. This happened at least three times in a span of 2-3 months. In January 2018 is when I hit rock bottom. I was exercising on a rowing machine and was doing really well until I stopped and noticed my heart rate was not going down, but getting increasingly faster. I had my husband call an ambulance and they said my heart rate was at 240bpm. I thought I was going to die. I couldn't breathe, I was too weak to stand, I just remember wanting to pass out so badly so I could end the suffering. Unfortunately I didn't and I made it to the hospital without any intervention except IV fluids. At the hospital, my heart rate stayed around 100bpm for about an hour after. They did tests on me and checked everything and one of the nurses mentioned SVT. I was given metoprolol to take home until I saw a cardiologist.
Here's where everything gets confusing. I saw my cardiologist multiple times and he ran EKG's, echocardiograms, holter monitor and everything came back normal. Then he mentioned to me that he went over my hospital records and they had documented at the time of my SVT attack, I was extremely dehydrated, literally almost zero fluids in my body. So this is what caused my heart rate to spike and not be able to slow down. It made sense because I've always been healthy and I used to run cross country and this has never happened before. So he told me he wouldn't be needing to see me anymore and that I just need to hydrate.
The point of all of this is that I am still scared to death to exercise hard. Can dehydration really cause a heart rate of 240bpm that lasts over 30 minutes? I live every day in constant anxiety thinking that I am just one day closer to my next attack. I have been trying to lightly exercise to stay in shape, but the fear of it happening again scares me to death. Another thing to mention is that he never got to do a stress test on me because I found out I was pregnant. So I never really found out if exercise was the cause of the episode or if dehydration was. So I live every day in fear. If I walk up the stairs too quickly and my heart speeds up, it makes me panic because I think it can cause an SVT episode. Sometimes I'll overheat while outside and my heart starts to speed up and this will also make me extremely anxious. The point is, I'm babying myself severely because of what happened and I can't stop. And even though it is now April (4 months since the attack) and I have not had another, I can't help but think I still may have one in the future. I really need help. It's ruining my life