Elevated heart rate from anxiety. Is it dangerous when it continues for a long time?

[jwoulf]

I have been in an almost-constant state of severe anxiety for about 2 weeks now. Visiting the hospital just about every other day.

My heart rate has been up lately, around 80-90 BPM at the lowest, is this dangerous?

It would help me if I could hear from other forum members about this. Specifically, what is the longest prolonged period of anxiety that you've experienced?

[countrygirl]

I also was worried about my heart rate a couple of years ago and was told that it is a myth that your heart has so many beats in it and once you have used them all up its curtains!! My Dr nearly fell off her chair laughing at this one. She said if your heart rate gets above 140 bpm for long time then your heart is beating inefficiently and this can cause cardiac arrest which is why they do the stop your heart proceedure in hospital if you have a very very fast heartrate and it restarts itself hopefuly normally.

It is a standing joke with me that every single time I have to go to hospital for a test or if a Dr examines me my one minute normal heart rate shoots up to 120bpm and it will not come down until they let me out!

I had a colonsocpy in summer and was so terrifeid and of course when you go in they take your bp and pulse - my bp was top end of normal but my pulse was between 120-130bpm. I explained that I always do this if nervous but the stupid nurse said she would leave the monitor on me bleeping in time to my racing heart for 10 mins to see if it would go down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After 5 mins I convinced her it was not the most sensible thing to do to someone who is already terrified to be able to hear their racing heart as well as feel it.

After the proceedure my bp was normal and my pulse had dropped to around 100bpm. Once home it was back to normal.