Stress Center Peer Support

I have been going back and forth about posting this or not. But it's on my mind, so obviously it will do me some good to get this out.

Today while on the phone with a client she told me her boss was in the hospital. I have talked to this man and he is very mean, to the point that he has yelled and screamed at me and her. At least I am not face to face when he had done it to me. I always thought, geez, this guy is going to have a heart attack.

Well, come to find out today that he just had quad bypass surgery. Now as mean as this man has been, I felt bad for him. It's not like I was thinking "he deserves it" or anything like that.

Soon after I heard this and found out a bit more info, my heart skips started. He is 62 and had no symptoms and was in for a routine stress test.

Anyway... I have anxiety and hearing anything about illness are hard for me. Because my anxiety symptoms are heart related (mostly), these are the illnesses I find hardest to hear without reacting.

So my symptoms were what felt like skipped beats (heart pauses/stopping) followed by a hard beat and fast heart rate. This went on/off for 30 min or so. I feel these in my throat. I also felt like my heart was too slow, then too fast, then skipping as I was definitely paying close attention to it and feeling my pulse. I have had these before, yet always struggle with them if I get more than one or two. I have been doing so well with not getting them as much lately and just thought I was doing much better in terms of anxiety as well.


Also, I was wondering what you all thought about magnesium and their relationship to these. I started taking magensium about a month or so ago and haven't had as many skips. I just ran out on Friday and waiting for another batch to arrive in the mail (I order from a supplier that uses natural ingredients).

In addition I have started meditating every day for 15 min to help keep my stress levels down.

Thank you for your reply. I really do appreciate everyone's time and always come back here from time to time to help when I get down about these again - most times it helps. Today I guess I need a little more help

Look into this-if you don't already know about it. Mitro Valve Prolapses. My husband and I have these. We have the same primary physician. He says they are mostly but not always stress induced combined with caffeine and nicotine and going long periods without food. Stress, stimulants and food deprivation put a lot of stress on your heart, unlike the good kind excercise does. One of your heart valves opens the wrong way and doesn't allow the blood to flow properly. These episodes can be mild or severe. With us it happens more than once, beating correctly several times and will start again. And shortly stops depending the situation. With both of us they come mostly when we are relaxed or experience a sudden episode of severe anger, stress and panic. Sometimes they are barely noticeable and sometimes more severe and scary. It feels like your heart does a flip kinda and because it is your blood flow, you feel it all over, even in your throat along with dizziness and a feeling that I can only describe as a sense that something you know is not normal or right. See your doctor. It may not be a big deal. My husband was electrocuted years ago and developed an irregular heart rythme. It went away in time with lasix. But he could feel his heart stop, would feel funny and get panicky. Our doctor told him that missing one heartbeat was fine. If you miss 2 in a row you'll hit the floor and that will probably be all she wrote. Go see your doctor!

Sounds like me. I am OK when I have one, but if I start having more than 1, I start getting nervous. It's like that with any symptom really. If I have stomach pain for 1 day, it's OK, but if I wake up and still feel sick, that's when my anxiety starts getting worse. It's when theres more than 1, the "glitch" or "oops" excuse goes out the window, lol. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about though. You know you're nervous about heart problems, you hear about someone having heart problems, then heart palps, a normal anxiety symptom, start happening. It sounds like you're biggest fear is showing itself during an anxious state. If I hear about lung cancer, my breathing will get shallow and I'll focus on it. If I hear about, MS, my body will start hurting and my muscles will feel sore. Sometime I feel if I just hear about more healthy people, I'll start feeling healthy. I'd say wait for the magnesium, since it seemed to be helping, although I haven't heard of any connection to heart palps.

Sue

Like you, I have trouble hearing about other people's illnesses because I tend to internalize them. I also have heart skipping like you described. Before I was diagnosed with anxiety, I went to my dr for this and he ordered a whole battery of heart tests including wearing a holster heart monitor for 2 weeks. I was diagnosed with superventricular or atrial tachicardia, a non-life threatenting but very annoying heart event. After I was diagnosed with anxiety, I learned that anxiety is one of the causes of this. Beinging in the health care field, I suggest you talk to your dr about this and have these heart tests (and ask about the monitor because these happen intermittently so this is the only way they can see what your heart is doing). The basic rule of thumb is that your dr should make sure you have no physical cause for your symptoms before you rack it up to anxiety!

Wow, Anne, I didn't eat before this happened. Just dove into work this morning and "forgot" to eat. I'm not a big morning eater, though I know the importance of eating breakfast and will eat it, just not right away. This morning I forgot.

I have had heart tests in the past, just none in the past two years. I have had ekgs, echocardiogram and one stress test when I had my first panic attack about six years ago. They said I didn't have MVP.

Thank you for your reply.

Addition. Also like Sue said. I've had cancer and chemo and have also had bypass surgery. I still have associative anxiety although I know I'm fine right now. I got creeped out about my heart again last fall because my heart pounding was strong and the heartbeats actually hurt. I went an got it checked out. All was fine. I have immune system and regular blood work every year. They were fine too. Just heart was beating too fast due to big panic spell and med withdrawals.

Zeus

Stay with the magnesium. I take a calcium/vit.d/magnesium supplement every day b/c these supplements (especially together) are good for the heart and nerves. I've read tons of research about this and alot of people are deficient in these.

Hey Zues! I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I really think you would benefit form visiting your doctor and explaining your what you are expeiencing w/ ur heart.I'm not sure how old you are or whether there is a history of heart problems that run in your family.What I can tell you is that 90-95% of heart palps are benign.The doctor will probably order an echocardiogram to make sure that heart is structually normal(which it most likely is, since this seems to be the only symptom that u have described) and, he will most likley have u to wear a Holter monitor to see how the electrical system of the heart is functioning.I've suffered from heart palps for about 8 years now and have had at some points as many as 200 + palps a day- The electrophysio cardiologist (specialize in electrical sys. of heart) at Emory Univ Hosp. put me on a treadmill and actually saw about 6 of them occur w/in 2-3 min and told me that I was perfectly fine in fact that if he had to sign off for me to go to a third world country the next day he would. I hope this provides u w/ some info.If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. PS The hard heart beat that you feel after the pause is called a compensatory pause and is a normal sensation.

Originally posted by zeus:
Anyway... I have anxiety and hearing anything about illness are hard for me. Because my anxiety symptoms are heart related (mostly), these are the illnesses I find hardest to hear without reacting.

I am the same as you Zeus. I think and worry a lot about physical symptoms, especially heart symptoms. I have had heart palpitations for years.. some people call them "skipped beats". I have had every test and everything is fine. My doctor says not to worry about them - that they are PVC's (Premature ventricular contractions). I have them often enough that I just forget about them. The more I seem to get stressed or worry, the more I seem to have them (or at least "think" I have them). I thought this was a great article about them and it even has audio clips of these PVC's. However, don't bother reading this if you don't like to read medical articles.

<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premature_ ... ontraction" TARGET=_blank>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premature_ ... raction</A>

Take care and don't worry! But, if in doubt, check it out with your doctor to gain peace of mind.

i read the posts and just had to chime in..I've had this bad anxiety which stemmed from a panic attack in december...well one of the symptoms I still get is this "skip beat" feeling..so hard to describe..I tried to describe it to my doctor and all, its difficult to explain, but all i know is it feels weird...Either way I've had holter monitor, ekg's (one at the emergency room. I was there specifically because I was feeling severe heart stopping and starting feelings), and echo too..Every time they tell me I'm fine...That doesn't mean there not scary, bc they are! I had a bad one the other day and it threw me off for a second..It made it worse bc I happend to be feeling my pulse when it happened! For those few seconds before I felt my pulse again, all I thought was "Am i gonna die right now?" ..So your not alone ..goodluck, Angelo..