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View Full Version : Missing/Irregular Heart - don't panic!



nicktaylor
22-10-05, 04:54
Hi all,

I've posted a couple of times here so far, and I read the site quite regularly.

I'm currently on a course of CBT for my anxiety, and it's generally really helping. My recurrent fear, however, is of problems with my heart. It's completely unrelated to what caused my anxiety to appear in the first place, but it's still the thing I worry about.

I wanted to share with you all an interesting fact on irregular heartbeats. There is a man I work with who has a pacemaker fitted. This is because sometimes his heart is very irregular, and it's needed to 'jump start' him. This doesn't happen very often (once in a couple of years, I think).

His doctors generally say he's fine, and he leads a completely normal life. He happened to mention that he might be going for 'ablation therapy' though, because he's been suffering ectopic beats.

Oh! I said, I get those because of my anxiety, when do you get them?

Apparently, he gets up to 20,000 (yes, twenty thousand) A DAY!

He lives completely normally, and he says they don't do anything to affect his day-to-day life, apart from being quite distracting sometimes.

So far all those of you out there (myself included) who gets the odd occasional ectopic beat (I get one every week or two), hopefully you can see that they're nothing to worry about, even if you get several, or even 100 in succession. You'll be fine, and you've got nothing to fear. And even if you had something seriously wrong with you, a doctor would be able to see it and treat it easily, you won't keel over and die from these things.

Hope this helps!

Nick.

linjane
22-10-05, 07:22
Hi Nick,
Thanks for sharing that with us, I'm sure it should go a long way to helping some of us, me included, who get these symptoms. I sometimes get maybe 40 or 50 ectopics a day, other days only a few so it was reassuring to read your post.

I haven't had many the last couple of days, and yet I have just been through something really horrible, for want of a better word.

Linda.

pinkscrumpy
22-10-05, 12:09
Thanks for sharing that.

I to have worries of the heart and feel a little better knowing that the amount we have is tiny compared to 20,000 a day

MANDIE XX

Will I ever escape this?
Will I ever be free?
Wake me up from this nightmare.
Please just give me the key!

trac67
22-10-05, 12:55
Its good to read something reassuring like your post, it will put a lot of peoples minds at rest.
Thankyou

Take care
Trac xx

'Live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwitten'