Heart Palpitations

[Madalous27]

Now, I suppose I should explain that I have always had heart palpitations for as long as I can remember.

until recently my HP where always random and would occur maybe once a day. It wasn't until March of this year that they have begun to occur at least 20 times a day. I should also note that I suffer from anxiety.

About a month and a half ago I was diagnosed with severe anemia. Which doesn't really surprise me since I have had this condition since I was a child and it seems to never go away.

my question would be...and this is pretty much for anyone who might have experienced this. How long does it take for frequent HP to go away once treatment for anemia is taken?

I know there are drugs to control them. But I heard of some side effects being a bit of a pain. They no longer scare me because I have had a monitor put on.

however, another question. a few months back I had this pretty severe panic attack and I had continuous skipped beats for about 10 Mins. Has anyone ever felt something like that when having a panic attack?

[blondielady]

I haven't been diagnosed with severe anemia at any point, although I have a feeling that my past blood tests may have been borderline and I just wasn't told because they were considered within normal limits. That said, back in December I started having heart palpitations for a few hours nonstop so I went into the ER. They monitored me and said there were no heart abnormalities so basically sent me on my merry way telling me that they were just annoying but I'd live. I went home and started researching like crazy and came across some things that said anemia could cause palpitations. I decided to take magnesium as a first line of defense since that's what mostly works for people, and that didn't seem to do anything. The palpitations went on for another day and that's when I wound up taking a slow release iron pill. No joke, the palps faded away within a couple of hours after that. I took iron for a few more days and I ate a lot of potassium rich foods because I'd found out at the ER for a tachycardia episode prior to then that I was very low on potassium and had to get an IV.

Anyway, I, like you, only typically get them randomly like maybe once or twice a day here and there and it always signals me to have some foods that are potassium rich and then I don't really get them for long periods of time. However, and this just started 6-7 months ago, I'll now get these times where i'll be missing beats regularly (like several times per minute) for days. I feel a little tired but I'm not sure if its the anxiety over them that makes everything worse. The first day that I had them I told myself they're just benign and that although annoying they will not hurt me and I just went about my daily business. However, after they didn't go away was when I started to feel edgy about it all and have broken down crying a few times over the past couple of days (don't know if you ever get to that point :( ).

I used to suffer from pretty ongoing anxiety. I felt "off-kilter" all the time and nervous about driving. I had a very tense neck and shoulders and these random little bouts of dizziness. This coincidentally was what was going on before I wound up in the ER and getting told I was severely low on potassium. Ironically, my regular doctor did blood tests 2 weeks prior and said all my levels were normal. This is why I wonder if we can possibly be borderline on some random mineral or whatever for a long time and it never gets caught until its pretty bad... and by then we've already had symptoms for quite some time. I'm sure anxiety is just a catch 22 that can cause problems but also be brought on by imbalances.

So anyway I got a little off track there but that last time I had palpitations I suspected anemia because I was paler than usual and pretty tired all the time, also had some head rushes upon standing so I took iron tablets right away and it seemed to eliminate the palps within hours. So I suppose if it isn't severe it is quicker and maybe it will take a bit longer if you are severely anemic.