Heart rate up for way too long?

[gemma1788]

Hi there anxiety sufferers! I am just wondering if anyone has experienced this in the past. I will tell the full story but I'm sorry if it is long!
So, on Saturday my fiancé and I went to a wedding. We had to stay away from home at the resort with one of his friends and his girlfriend. I was anxious from the beginning being away from home! We are getting married in three weeks and seeing another wedding in action made me all the more anxious. Half way through the reception my husband says he has "the worst headache he's ever had" and I instantly believe it is a blown aneurysm (obviously lol). I checked all his vitals (I am an ER nurse so I know what I'm doing) everything looks fine. Let's be honest, even though everything looked normal I still believed he was dying. But I went back to the wedding to try and distract myself. I had had a few wines and a few cigarettes (which isn't any different to any other outing), but I felt my heart racing. I check my pulse, 120. Ok, so that's high but I'm anxious. I take a few deep breaths to try and slow it down. Not budging. Oh sh!t. Half an hour goes by and it still hasn't budged and I'm secretly trying to check my pulse without anyone noticing and continuing to act normal although on the inside I am freaking. So I decided to have a shower and go to bed and play some games on my iphone to distract me. Two hours has passed by now and my heart rate is not budging! 120! I slept on and off checking my pulse at every waking and it stayed up at 120. At around 3:30am I decided to have half a Valium, which I couldn't do earlier because of the alcohol. Come five thirty and I am still at 120! We left early (my fiancé woke up feeling perfect) and drove home. I took a full Valium and went to bed at around 10 am. I woke up and my heart rate was back to its regular at 70.
Has anyone ever had a high heart rate for this amount of time!!!????
I have had a holter monitor and get the results this afternoon because my gp is concerned.
I didn't want to go to the hospital, because I genuinely thought it was anxiety.
Thanks so much! I'm sorry it was long!

[3taceyl0u]

Hi, I actually don't know how to take my heart rate which is probably for the best as I would be checking it all the time! And I have no clue about medical things in general. But as far as anxiety do you think if you were worrying about that one thing in particular then you would be keeping it that high? Sort of like if I worry about feeling sick then I continue to feel sick and it becomes a vicous circle? Also if youd had a couple of drinks maybe you could of misscounted in your worry?

[simong]

I know that a healthy heart can work at 120 for some time. It prob is anxiety. When anxiety started with panic attacks I thought it was a heart problem. Thing felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I'm in uk and got a private clinic to run a full cardio health check. All normal. Just anxiety doing its thing.

[gemma1788]

I assumed it was anxiety, but in my work I have never dealt with an increased heart rate for longer than an hour, simply because my patients are given medication to bring it down right away.