Just after Christmas so 8 weeks ago or so I noticed I started to get lightheadness going upstairs or getting up. I am a runner so I put it down to increasing my running mileage. The symptoms continued and I did start getting the odd occasion were I felt like my breath had been taken away. Went to the doctors and they said my blood pressure was quite low and did a full blood count. All normal. Over the following week I started having funny turns - which i now know are palpitations .... making me feel very strange indeed. Doctors did an ecg and that was normal. Being a runner I decided to buy a heart rate monitor and as my heart felt it was racing sometimes I wore it for a day and during running ... slight strange thing was that my heartrate seemed to drop to 115bpm climbing a hill which was odd. While standing scanning my shopping suddenly felt very hot and my watch was beaping as my heartrate was 238bpm. I stood upright and took some deep breaths and it started to come down. Felt very odd and super tired after that and calmy / sweaty. I have some occasions as well of feeling like my heart is skipping a beat. Seems daily now though. Sat watching tv and my resting heartrate had been 43 earlier in the evening ... and all of a sudden I felt the breath taken away and a thud and my hr jumped to 110 and wouldnt go down , followed by 3 more thuds. My heartrate stayed over 100 for a while and when i did come down to 80 i couldnt stop shaking so I went to a and e ... who did an ecg and it was normal. The dr said they have to capture the flutter on ecg before they will do anything. Also I have been tracking my weight since after christmas as about a year ago despite running my weight for the first time in my life jumped over 9 stone .. put this down to muscle and drinking a bit more. So after xmas I tracked my calories with aim of losing 1lb a week - yet I have put on even more weight even though I have double my miles running and am now 3 quarters of a stone - nearly a stone heavier than I was this time last year ? Also feeling fairly tired now too. Any ideas what could be causing all of this ... The heart palpitstions are very scary and very comfortable and I feel kind of floaty and strange all the time
As a long-term sufferer from cardiac arrhythmias (which go back as long ago as 1973), I can identify with your concerns 100 per cent. My own cardiac misdemeanours come in all sorts of different shapes and forms - sometimes at the same time, and almost always at random without rhyme or reason so that I can't pin it down to any particular cause. The heart seems to have a mind all of its own. Right now I'm going through a bad patch of assorted manifestations - ectopic beats and atrial tachycardia - all this despite the loads of medication I'm on, including Atenolol and Flecainide, both of which are supposed to counteract irregular heart rhythms. Neither seem to be having much success despite the high dosage, esp. of Flec. A by-product of the arrhythmia is intense feelings of anxiety and unease (waiting for the next occurrence, etc.) which is counter-productive as these feelings contribute in turn to the triggering the symptoms. Life can be utterly wretched when all this is going on. I can empathise with your high BP description; mine spiked at 232 bpm during a phase of particularly high anxiety. I'm starting on a course of Sertraline (anti-depressant and anti-anxiety) to see if this helps. The Diazepam I've been taking for this wasn't doing much good.
I can't emphasise enough how much I detest these symptoms and my heart (pun unintentional) goes out to anyone and everyone affected by them. This discussion platform is reassuring to the extent that we're not alone with our cardiac problems - there are thousands and thousands of us out there so it helps to be able to share our experiences with others, and provide suggestions, mutual reassurance and support.
Thankyou so much for your response its great to here I am not alone. Gone from running 25-30 miles a week to nothing and feeling exhausted all the time .... its horrible and that feeling of when its scary ... I try and distract myself. I have had the odd palpitation / flutter in the past but it literally happened once every few months but never really bothered me to that degree but now its a lot worse .... I think I would feel more reassured once I have an appointment with a cardiologist to tell me what is happening. My GP has referred me to a hot clinic but the dr in a&e said it could be weeks before I hear anything. My gp is reluctant to put me on beta blockers which I can understand as my heartrate can get as low as 43 just sat in the chair.
Thank you for your response i really apprehicate it
I have been suffering with palpitations and my heart racing since 1974, i have learnt to live with it but have tried many drugs to stop these, recently i was admitted to hospital, bisoprolol was started but it makes me feel awful. You re right that all these weird heartbeats that come on for sometimes no reason at all makes your life quite difficult. I also have a heart murmur now probably due to these horrible things.
Hi dollar, so sorry to hear you are going through this. I've been suffering with palpitations for 2 years sporadically but every few days sunce Xmas when i started getting them through the night and panic attacks. Looking back to when they started id say the palpitations came first and panic attacks were my fear response, but maybe it was anxiety that causes the palps then the palps caused panic attacks! Ive had 4 ecgs, 1 was slightly abnormal but the last one was normal since ive been on betablockers, sertraline and the occasional diazepam in high stress situations. The BBs stopped the full blown panic attacks happening and the sert is gradually reducing the anxiety. Im on 100mg sertraline and i have to be honest and say for the first 2-3 weeks it increases anxiety to terrible, and every time ive upped the dose i get increased anxiety in the mornings till it settles (i take it at night), but it has made a huge difference and i am able to get on with work, shopping etc tho still have lapses when i need a diazepam. Im also having cbt and hypnotherapy once a week which is a great help. I am quite neely menopausal which may be the root cause of the anxiety issues and resulting palpitations and PAs, but until the palps are recorded i cant know for sure. O wore a loop monitor for 3 days...no palps to record! They still sneak thru every few days, often in anxious situations or postural...lieing down or going from bending to standing. I have flutters, the feeling of skipped beats, sometimes a big bang or once, several, which was terrifying and made me catch my breath. I have agonised about going to A&E then thought therell be nothing show up by the time i get seen! I am getting better at not having a full on panic when it happens but it still unnerves me and ruins the day, then im anxious about it happening again, making it more likely to happen again! It may take an echcardiogram to reassure me that theyre benign, but so far it hasnt been offered. So I empathize with all who suffer with palps, keep us posted how you get on. Has anyone suggested atrial fibrillation? This is quite common in athletes. Though if youve had ecgs when your HRs been mega high, i guess theyd know if it was AFib. I wish you well in getting to the bottom of this.
Thankyou for you reply. So scary when it happens ... I am kind of hoping that my blood tests will reveal so kind of potential cause ... have my suspicions on my thyroid. I would feel much more comfortable if I knew the reasons, my uncle had arrhythmias i think and heart failure - unfortunately he was offered a pacemaker and ignored his doctors and he passed away. My nan had problems and so did my grandad so I guess this probably doesnt help my feeling of unease. Fingers crossed I get to the bottom of it ☺
I believe so yes. I am 36. My nan was diagnosed at 17 with I think she had a hole in her heart I need to talk with my mum. My uncle was only 65 when he died and I know he had issues when we were kids so perhaps he was in his 40's ... details are a little sketchy
Ok hun, and have you told your doc about family history in the hope they get you in sooner at cardiologists? On a positive note, if your doc deemed it potentially dangerous theyd have you in straight away. Well this is what my brother in law told me and he works on cardiology ward, well manages it.
So glad to hear people in the same situation ...I think the night I ended up in a and e I may have been panicing as well as it was a few days after my attack when my heartrate esculated to 238bpm ... but then I still tried to relax with deep breathing but the big thuds in my heart scary the hell out of me just coming from nowhere. When i sleep it is happening too as i wake up all of a sudden and this has been going on for a week or two. I also am sweating profusely at night ... its all really weird ... but i think the key is to try and relax as well. My ecg was well after an hour of the thuds so i think it would be normal ? My heartrate was still high but I might have been on edge. I think a 24 hr monitor would pick it up as I am feeling flutters going on a lot ... just depends when I might actually get to see a doctor about it 😊
Oh and the floaty/ strange feeling...do you suffer from anxiety ( you probably do when getting palps, but what about in between?). Because when i get waves of anxiety i feel light headed, unsteady on my legs, a bit 'out of it'.
Not sure on the anxiety front. I feel more anxious these days than I used too so maybe this is it. I almost feel a bit drunk / out of reality but thats a feeling that has only just manifested so it could be anxiety I guess ?
I havent told them about the history but thats probably a good idea. My mum is going to let me know their history so I can do this. My gp has put me on a hot clinic list which I believe is an urgent outpatients clinic so at least I will get seen a little sooner than an regular outpatients appointment. My gp was really good bless her ....
It was a nurse at my surgery who fixed me up with the loop monitor and i kept it all weekend, but had no palps! Can you ring and ask if your surgery can do the same?
Certainly worth asking the question, I presumed they wouldnt have these facilities so I will check. Guessing this is what the cardiologist would do so it would be nice to go in armed with information ... no doubt it will have settled down and they wont capture it lol
And mine was terrible during the night around new year,for about 4-5 nights i kept waking straight into HR of 113-117, nocturnal panic attacks, then wide awake with fear. The beta blockers stopped that really quickly and got me back to sleeping ok. Then i went on sertraline to help the anxiety but as i said before, it makes it worse before it starts to get better and up to 3 mths for full effect. At about 2 months now, still a way to go but so much better than i was at xmas.
Yes its typical, yet ive heard sone people get a monitor for like a month...but i guess theyre in demand. Mine happen every 3-4 days, often but not always when stressed. Thankfully i dont get the full panic attack after as the BBs stop the effect of adrenaline on the heart, so my HR doesnt go crazy now, but i did end up in A&E last April after going faint and out of it, pins n needles and panic attack! Ecg normal tho HR was high as i was still having a PA at the hospital!
That sounds positive. Yes the night ones are odd , all of a sudden awake and heart is racing. I maybe suffering a similar anxiety thing without even knowing it. My mum says my uncle had heart failure due to having severe bronchitus which sounds odd to me ... and my nan had a weakness in her heart not sure what that means.
I think the one on Thursday was more panic after my heart skipping beats , as soon as my hr came down a bit I couldnt stop shaking but the one in asda was completely out of the blue and I didnt feel any thuds just my heartrate go up enormously and then back down again. Well weird !
I really hope it wont stop my running ... I am supposed to be running a half marathon in two weeks but told I shouldnt run for the time being
