Please someone calm my heart fears :(

[jenni89]

I have had heart anxiety since about April when I started to feel chest tightness. I even went to the ER. They did a chest xray, bloodwork, and an EKG and sent me out the door. Then I started getting more palpitations than usual. In August I felt a really big thud, and then my heartbeat was feeling so irregular for about ten minutes. That had never happened to me for that long so I went to the hospital. As soon as I got to the hospital, of course I had zero palps. I was admitted and monitored. I had a chest xray, ct scan with contrast, legs were checked for clots as d dimer was slightly elevated, ultrasound of my heart and several EKGS. Everything was normal. I've always had the occasional skipped beats but not runs of them!! :( They are scaring me to death and I'm this close to running to the ER. They have been bad the last few days. I heard that skipped beats are normal if they are few, but runs of them signal afib or vfib :( I'm terrified someone PLEASE help!

[jimbome1968]

I have had heart anxiety since about April when I started to feel chest tightness. I even went to the ER. They did a chest xray, bloodwork, and an EKG and sent me out the door. Then I started getting more palpitations than usual. In August I felt a really big thud, and then my heartbeat was feeling so irregular for about ten minutes. That had never happened to me for that long so I went to the hospital. As soon as I got to the hospital, of course I had zero palps. I was admitted and monitored. I had a chest xray, ct scan with contrast, legs were checked for clots as d dimer was slightly elevated, ultrasound of my heart and several EKGS. Everything was normal. I've always had the occasional skipped beats but not runs of them!! :( They are scaring me to death and I'm this close to running to the ER. They have been bad the last few days. I heard that skipped beats are normal if they are few, but runs of them signal afib or vfib :( I'm terrified someone PLEASE help!
Hi jenni as you had the decency to message me I thought I'd look at your concerns to see if I can help. The heart is an area I know something about, firstly EKG's (we call ECG in uk) is a pretty crappy stand alone test, in fact stand alone unless you have a serious muscular defect within the heart or are having a serious coronary event when being monitored then it won't show much else. However I did say stand alone, however where you have a EKG history it is quite good for comparison purposes as it can pick up changes that would standalone seem normal. Blood tests are quite good as an enzyme is released into the blood as part of a coronary event which will show up in your blood test. The ultrasound will show the hearts muscular and valve operations which is quite a good test. Im not sure benefit of CT with contrast, I know the contast is used to highlight blood vessels however the gold standard test for your arteries is an angiogram. You mentioned an elevated D Dimer test , I know that if you have arthritis or any inflammation you can end up with a false positive here, an inflammation will also give a raised ESR and / or CRP blood tests. My mother had two elevated D Dimers in the last year to no avail. After several other tests and a tests for ovarian cancer it turned out that it must've been her rheumatoid arthritis which caused the d Dimer elevation.
Anyway most importantly you are 26 years old , way too young to be worried about your heart. I think similar to me you are suffering some serious and possibly irrational health anxiety. I have been prescribed Citalopram specifically for this reason. While it doesn't get rid of your anxieties it allows you to approach them with a calm head and more objective manner. What you have been through with your mother will naturally give you a feeling of mortality. I hope I have been of some help and I wish you all the best. Jim