heart palpitations

[mamascrazy1985]

So i have had these before plenty of times and yes i have been to the cardiologist but each time i get a skipped heart beat it freaks me out for weeks at a time and causes more. I am a highley stressed mother of two and currently pregnant i also know that when pregnant your heart works hard for baby but i cant seem to shake these panic feelings when it happens as well as my irrational thoughts :( anyone relate

[kmarie30]

Omg me! I just posted about this I get them for no reason I'm a stressed mom of 1 cuz I'm dealing with daily dizziness and this gives me bad bad anxiety for the last 10 months. I'm so sick of thinking I'm dying everyday thinking I'm going to leave my son mom less. I'm so scared everytime this happens.

[mamascrazy1985]

Wow exactly i too feel unbalanced all day and i have two kids and am also terrfied of the what if i pass out etc and my thoughts go crazy. I hate being alone and i am the majority of the time :( i sit for most of the day just so i dont have to feel unbalanced. Hate these feeling. There so real

[cat eyes]

Me too!! Heart papiltations, dizzy, headaches and a feeling like I am going to die or pass out. I been to so many doctors and ER. I had alot of tests and now wearing a 21 day holter monitor.

[mamascrazy1985]

Yep been there. I wore one twice one for 24 hrs and the other for a month everything normal i just hate the feelings of them and being unbalanced all day!! i just want to be normal and care free like i used to be 3 years ago

[anxietykidd]

I also have heart palps... Then I found out I have pulmonary hypertension for some reason... And I have to go to a lung specialist to get some tests done... My cardio said don't worry about it but... It still scares me... They found out by doing a cardio stress test... But he said my heart is fine...

[dazza]

Have you searched for other threads on heart palps? (there's quite a few on here)

The upshot is:

1/ They're quite normal for a healthy person
2/ If you have stress &/or anxiety - this will cause them
3/ You aint gonna die from them
4/ They will pass

The heart is extremely sensitive (it has to be because of the tiny electrical signals it is driven by), so, with excess adrenalin and all kinds of activity in your chest during times of panic - the heart is gonna skip from time to time.
If you poke a heart (yeah I know.. not often you get to do that eh?) then it would wobble like jelly!

Do you really expect it to beat absolutely perfectly in time, everytime... for the whole of your life? (80 beats per min, 4800 beats per hours, 115200 per day, 806400 beats per week, 3225600 beats per month, 38707200 (39 million!!!!) beats per year!

Of course not!

Remember this: The heart is completely automatic and is designed to keep you alive (as are all our organs). It recognises any abnormalitites (such as a palp) and will ALWAYS correct itself.

The more you worry about it the more it will happen... guaranteed.

Palps tend to occur in peeps aged between 20 and 50 (where stress is at it's highest). They tend to completely dissapear after 50.

[dazza]

By the way... I suffered heart anxiety for ~6 months.

I ended up listening to it almost 24/7! drove me nuts.

Palps would cause me BAD panics, which in turn fed the inbalance in my system, which in turn would often cause more palps!

I became very familiar with them actually, and eventually I could almost perfectly predict when they were about to occur. Spooky huh?
But what does this say?

Well... I'll tell ya:

It says that I actually became aware of the cause, and that cause was a state of MIND.

I would find that my mind was starting to drift (into a bad place)... flashes of bad, panicky thoughts.
Chest wall would start to tighten (feeling bloaty) with fresh, adrenalin fuelled blood and any second I knew a palp would occur... and it did!

Other stuff that helps somewhat:

cut out caffeine
cut out alcohol
TRY to minimise smoking (if you smoke)

and of course the best one...

RELAX

:-)

[Jconley]

I seem to get these palps frequently the past few months and they are pretty freaky. It's hard to think its normal, but if you have been checked out by a doc and everything is good then try to put your mind at ease. It is def hard but I try to stay busy and keep my mind off of them. The more you freak out about them, the more you will get them.

[DrSusanHickman]

Dear Mamascrazy,

I can certainly relate. One interesting thing to note, though, is that the heart palpitations during pregnancy can be hormone related and not necessarily related to anxiety. I had never had heart palpitations before, but with each of my pregnancies, I had them for the whole time and then it disappeared as soon as I delivered. It was more like an extra beat or a skipped beat...hard to explain. And I finally discovered literature that talked about mitrovalve (spelling?) prolapse (which I have), pregnancy (hormones) and this type of irregular beat. The only other time I have experienced them is when I have been extremely stressed. Sounds like you've got all that and then some. The good news is that it is generally (or so I was told and also I experienced) nothing to worry about. I also think it is interesting that we very quickly associate changes in heart beat with fear. And doesn't this make so much sense? Generally, the sympathetic nervous system ramps up our heart rate when we face circumstances that are fearful (to prepare us to fight or run), so changes in our heart rate can automatically cause us to feel fearful. In the case of hormone and pregnancy induced changes, though, there is nothing to be afraid of and this is what you have to keep speaking to yourself so that you don't let it run away with you. Hope this helps.

[DrSusanHickman]

HI Dazza,

You said this so well. I find that when my patients suffer with anxiety and panic attacks, it is hard at first to accept just how much the mind has to do with it. There is a big difference in saying, "It is all in your head" (meaning, there is nothing really amiss - you are making it up) and trying to explain how much your head can help or hurt the situation. All of the physiology of anxiety is real. There is nothing unreal about it because it represents the "turning on" of the sympathetic nervous system which gears us to deal with real danger. But PERCEIVING danger is what the mind is up to...and then this triggers the nervous system and we wind up with all the physical symptoms. Loved your post.

[mamascrazy1985]

Thanks everyone its helps to know i am not alone with this