Still so worried about my heart

[Freaked]

I started getting racing heart episodes about two months ago. Landed me in the ER, etc. The longer it's gone on, the more funny chest pain and pressure and chin pain I've been getting. This wouldn't bother me so much, except for my whole life I've gotten angina-like pain when I run. First my jaw and teeth and chin would hurt, then neck/shoulder, then chest. It would go away after I'd been resting for a few minutes. All doctors agree this sounds like textbook angina, except obviously it's very unlikely I had a heart blockage at age four.

My echo is normal, but those don't show the arteries in much detail. Doctors don't want to do an angiogram because it's invasive and I'm only 21, but I really don't see why nobody's ever ordered a cardiac MRI, since it's non-invasive and would show congenital artery abnormalities, which would be the most likely cardiac cause of the pain. An ER cardiac nurse suggested this, but my cardiologist just hasn't ordered one in all these years, and now has washed his hands of me because at the moment he thinks I have anxiety or a benign post-viral thing. So I literally have no one to talk to and I'm going to keep being terrified until I get a scan.

[KeeKee]

Hi,

Sorry I cannot help you butI have very bad heart anxiety at the moment. I went to A&E through it too and they are classic signs of anxiety (once they have established there is nothing wrong with your heart).
I'm sure if they thought anything was wrong with your heart they would have ordered more tests.
I also get racing heart and palpitations (although not constantly) and was put on Propranolol for anxiety which really, really helped. Now I am scared again but this is the cycle I must face and I only feel reassured after I have visited the doctors and then within 1 to 2 weeks I panic again.
I also get crazy pains in my upper arms, shoulders, collarbone and chest and during a visit to A&E I was told many, many people who go there with nothing wrong with them (physically) having previously 'googled' their symptoms. the mind can play tricks on us and I don't think any doctor would risk their reputation for something that is no cost to them personally.

[Freaked]

Thanks for the reassurance; I suppose what always gets me is the fact that I KNOW it wasn't anxiety when I was a kid, so believing it's all anxiety now when I get similar pains is difficult. I'm so scared all the time. A few nights ago I had this terrifying episode where I started getting twinges in my jaw and pressure in my chest and felt all sweaty, then I sat up and felt really WEIRD for a second and couldn't find my pulse, then my heart started POUNDING suddenly for like five minutes. So terrified my heart stopped or went into some weird rhythm :'(

[alexi]

I had this problem and after many visits to my GP managed to actually capture one of these episodes on an ECG machine - I was sent off to A&E and then on coronary care until they established I was having SVT's (supreventricular tachycardia), I was allergic to the meds and so had an ablation done. Hey presto - no more galloping heartbeat !

[backfromthebrink]

Freaked, there is a thing called a 'holter monitor', which is like a portable ECG machine. You wear it for a day and any time you feel the chest pain/racing, you press a button and it will record whatever your heart is doing at that time. The cardiologist can then look at that and determine if anything is wrong.

I totally get where you're coming from though. I don't get the racing heart much, although I did get a weird sort of hard and fast 3 beats yesterday. I am getting more chest pains and they can happen any time - sometimes just sitting at my desk, not necessarily when doing something physical. Sometimes I do think they are happening whilst I'm running but not the whole time I'm running and not enough to stop me running, so I end up running whilst asking myself 'is that chest pain, is my chest hurting, is it just muscular…or anxiety?!!'. It is like a dull pain towards the left part of my sternum.

I went to my GP. The first time I saw him, I was probably in my late 20s (I'm female), and he said it was extremely unlikely to be anything serious, given my age and sex and asked me if I was stressed. I was v stressed then. He did a cholesterol blood test - I think more to reassure me than because it was a useful test. It came back normal.

At which point, I went away for my summer holiday to visit my extended family in my childhood home - and I felt a lot more relaxed getting away from everything and back somewhere familiar and I kind of forgot about the whole chest pain thing and was able to reassure myself it was nothing. It must have gone away because I seem to have been unaware of it for several years….until now….

When (now 34/35yo) I again find myself incredibly stressed, more stressed than I've ever been in my life - over various health anxiety fears. And lo and behold the chest pain started again a few months into this. I went back to my GP, and asked for an ECG. The nurse did the ECG and said the dr would call me if there was anything wrong with it. I didn't get a call, so assume it was normal.

I did ask the doctor if he would refer me for a cardiac stress ECG, but he said that there is a risk of false positives with those - that sometimes they can come out with a worrying result even though there is nothing wrong with the heart. And if you get a false positive they would probably want to follow up with more tests, some of which can be invasive and carry risks of their own (like your angiogram for eg) - my dr said something about injecting something into an artery.

So he didn't want to refer me for that reason. But I got the sense that, if I really wanted and insisted that I wanted the referral, even knowing that, then he would refer. He is not one to refuse a referral if a patient really wants one, although he will advise on it.

So now I'm kind of stuck with these occasional dull or tight chest pains, which are really pretty scary when they happen - and I just don't know whether to go back and ask for the referral despite what he said - or whether just to accept that this is anxiety and try to forget about it. Which is hard when it feels so real and physical and scary.

I do remember also worrying about this when I first left home for uni, age 18/19 - which was a stressful time for me too.

I do know that I get the chest pain FIRST, and THEN I get incredibly afraid, sweaty palms etc - the anxiety follows the pain, it doesn't come before it. Although of course it could be caused by constant low-key anxiety and tension which I'm not totally aware of.