Heart amongst other things.

[pgw84]

Hi everyone, again.

I'm still incredibly anxious about my heart, so much so it's difficult to put in to words, and no amount of words could do the intensity of this depression and anxiety any justice.

I've been to the doctors so many times now, that it feels they'll only accept my complaints once I've got some help from the primary care mental health place, I've booked an appointment for another course which is next month. I don't feel I can't go back to the doctors anytime soon as I feel so ashamed and I've been so many times that no one believes me, even though my symptoms are very real.

Tonight I've thought about calling the Samaritans and thought about suicide too, although I can't really do either.

I went to the doctors a short while back and said about these funny heartbeats I've been getting, which they said were textbook ectopic beats, dropping in chest, thumping heart beat, breathless etc.., I feel so stupid about not mentioning the others beats I get which bother me the most. When during or after exertion I sometimes get a slow heartbeat, much slower than my resting pulse. It beats very slowly and irregularly, it sometimes goes with my breathing too, like an exaggerated form of sinus arrhythmia. I do not get the strange dropping feeling in my chest like I do with 'ectopic beats', but my heart beats irregularly and slow. It doesn't last long before my heart rate returns to normal.

I have a bit of pectus carinatum too, which I've read can cause heart problems, I also have a low BMI.

I am so convinced I have an undiagnosed heart problem that it has ruinned my life, I also feel depression and anxiety about other thing too, although this is the main one. I can see the honesty in the absurdness and pointlessness of it all, I feel like ending it all now, instead of living whatevers left of my life in such tortuous pain.

This is a mega post I know, sorry in advance.

[angiebaby]

I am sorry you are having such a tough time at the moment and i know exactly how you feel. I have had ectopic heart beats for 12 years now and they have got worse and more frequent. I have had thousands of ECG's and a 3 day holter monitor which showed sinus arrhythmia and sinus tacchycardia, all normal i am told. They think my ectopics are benign, as i don't think they caught any at that time, typical. I would just love to catch just one episode so i had it there in black and white and they could see it and tell me it was ok. But so far, nothing, which i know is sod's law!!
I also have other funny heartbeats, very irregular but not as powerful as an ectopic and they can last for hours at a time, check my posts about it. They drive me mad. I get a lot of ectopics also if i do things, scared to exercise for instance and i don't like my 'racing' heart either. I do understand and have thought the same as you on many an occasion. But at the end of the day i am too chicken to do anything to myself anyway but it doesn't stop the thoughts does it?
They are very frightening and even though i am told they are ok and i am supposed to 'ignore' them, i can't and they DO run and ruin my life. These are one of my worst symptoms of what we go through, the other two are dizziness and unreality. But i am told that things do get better with time, i am still waiting but hopefully that time will come. Some of us feel them and some of us don't, but most people in the world get them. They just don't know that they get them. I have proof of this as i do ECG's in my role and i pick them up and my patients cannot even feel them and they can have hundreds. I don't think this is fair and if i knew i was having them but i couldn't feel them then i know that they wouldn't bother me at all. It is only the fact that i am so sensitive to them that they bother me. But remember that they won't hurt you or cause any damage, hard i know, especially when you have run's of them one after one another and when your not expecting them, but we are all still here and still putting up with them!
I understand how you feel and i hope that you feel better soon.xx

[cattttt]

I understand how you feel too. I get ectopics and other funny heartbeats and I've worried about it even more since I was told I have a heart murmur. It wasn't too bad for a while, but just recently, since I've found out I'll probably need a hysterectomy (waiting for appt with gynae), it's really bothering me, palps, ectopics and funny heartbeats all day. I'm pretty sure it's anxiety related as it's only got like this since I went back to my gp about the gynae prob and she referred me.
It went away before when I got through a bad period of anxiety, so I'm trying to bear with it and wait for it to go away again.
It's so hard to ignore it and I know how scared you feel, but if you've had all the investigations and they've found nothing, you can be pretty sure that it's anxiety.
A big hug for you, and hope you are feeling better. xxx

[pgw84]

Thank you both so much for your kind replies. I felt a bit better the next morning, I keep going from complete and utter dispair to a calmer 'I'll get through this' mentality and back again.

My mood management course is the middle of next month and I'm going to try and aim to get to the doctors again at the end of next month, at least then I can say I've been on the course and it was a couple of months since my last appointment. The problem is I feel like I'm on borrowed time. The doctor said they could try me on a beta blocker again if the problem persists, so I might do that and make a point of mentioning these other strange heartbeats.

As for the ectopic beats I've been getting, I have somewhat correlated them with increased anxiety or anxious situations. It's just these other blasted things I'm getting more times than not after exertion, normally by breathing out it brings on slow wonky beats that I feel pulsing through my body. Like I already said, an exaggerated form of sinus arrhythmia.

If only there was someway of knowing if I had a heart problem or not, even if I did, it wouldn't be so bad as not knowing at all, when you get all the symptoms.

I feel like screaming 'YES OR NO!!'