Heart Palpitations

Hi everyone,

Sadly, it has been it has been quite a while since I was here.

About 8 weeks ago I came within inches of fainting in a shop in the city. Since then, I have been having heart palpitations, like its missing or skipping a beat, and feeling lightheaded but not having a fainting attack since.

I cannot stop thinking I am going to have a heart attack or that I am going to die. I can't seem to relax about it, and its becoming obvious to my family and friends that something is wrong, and I cannot speak to any of them about it.

I am overweight, and have been stressing about loosing weight, and giving up smoking too. But I have lost weight and I should be happy with it.

I have made an appointment to speak with my doctor this week, but I am very worried about confiding the above with her. I know she will have heard it before and she can actually help me, but on the other hand I am very scared that she will find something wrong with my heart and that scares me.

I am a total mess :weep:

RLR said that palpitations can sometimes come for a while from the withdrawal of nicotine

Hi sorry to hear you are having a bad time at the moment. Has the fainting episode made you quite anxious? my missed heart beats and other strange feelings in my chest are always occur after a really stressful event and then because they worry me i get stuck in a viscious circle of getting the missed beats because i am anxious about them. I felt a lot better after seeing the GP because they will be able to give you more information and also check your heart which will be reasurring for you. Read all the info you can on here about palpitations and ecoptic heartbeats, there is lots of reasurring info xx

You may have had a panic attack. When I had my first it felt like I was going to faint but I didn't and that was the main symptom. After a few minutes I gained strength again. There are many causes for palpitations, too many to consider each factor. You may have the skipped beats because of stress/anxiety, it's very common. I've gone hours having skipped beats every few seconds and i'm still here, it was all caused by anxiety and stress. Don't be worried about going to the doctor. Imagine how relieved you will feel when he/she says that your heart is fit and healthy, focus on that instead of the negatives. You'll be absolutely fine. :)

Thank you all for your kind advice. I think I really just need to talk to someone about it, and have contacted an anxiety counsellor and hopefully my doctor can help me too.
Thanks again x