CAN SEVERE PANIC MISREPRESENT ON ECG TRACING?!!!!

Can a severe panic attack misrepresent on an ecg tracing as a Suggestive SVT and arrhythmia? Please help!!!!

Hi

Welcome aboard.

I am sorry but I really don't know. I wouldn't have thought so though.

Are you saying that something showed up?

Nicola

Hi Charlie, all I can say is that I always panic when having an ECG and my heart always goes mad, causing arrhythmia as arrhythmia can worsen with stress. Do you suffer with it anyway? did you go in hospital with an actual panic attack?

Polly

Hi, yes I had a bad panic attack { more like a phobic reaction!} Whilst having an ECG tracing done on Friday evening. I have suffered from severe anxiety since my sister died in sep 2001. It just so happened that the hospital I was in having the tracing was the one where my sister died. As you can imagine I was already highly anxios before I was hooked up to the ECG machine, unfortunatley they didn't switch the volume off so every time I heard a missed beat or my heart rate increasing this made it alot worse to the stage where I was so anxious, I pushed the doctoer and 2 nurses off of me as they didn't know me and thought I was having a "serious Arrhythmia!!!" as they so rationally put it!! I was not on beta blockers at the time but because I was so distressed I was asked to go to another local hospital in my area as I was unable to go back into the hospital that I had the initial eg taken in. I went along to the other hospital to have another tracing done and once I'd been given time to calm myself and associated myself with the room I was in my heart rate did drop a bit, I was given 50mg of atenolol which slowed my heart rate to the mid 80's, which is actually quite slow for me as I am usually 97 at resting. The doctor I saw allowed me home on Friday but when I went back last night to ask for some more atenolol, I saw another doctor who had said that my ecg showed a suggestive SVT, he began to explain what this meant but I was too scared to listen, I haven't looked up what exactly an SVT is? And I don't intend to, as it will only cause me more problems!! Ill be convinced that I should book myself into the undertakers!!! lol! My parnter called my doctor today and she said that sometimes a severe panic attack can misrepresent as an SVT as there is a fine lne between them? As you can imagine I have absolutely no faith in the medical profession after wittnessing 7 years of hospital trips with my sister who was very ill. Do you know of anyone who might know? I am scared to google it because I am extremely paranoid about illness. My partner is unwilling to check it either as he has been quite upset about the events of the past two days.

Found this through GOOGLE

Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) is a term to describe any rapid heart rate


Perhaps ...I hope not as bad as you thought?

Hope you can relax and get to feeling better!

Ardyce

Hi
first - an SVT is a supraventricula tachycardia which is the to lower chambers of the heart beating over 100bpm which is extremely common and rarely dangerous.
I have 2 rythmn disorders with my heart and svt is a common side effect of these, drives me crazy but u do get used to it.
An arrythmia is an a beat that's not meant to be there, arrythmias range from potentially fatal to completely benign
the dangerous ones are usual ventricular and rare and rest assured if one had been seem on your ECG docs would have been straight on to it, the rest are usually atrial (top chambers of the heart) and are mostly more of an annoyance than dangerous and can be controlled with meds, ablation therapy or if particulary benign they're are just left and you learn to live with it.
An arrythmia can't be exclusive to a panic attack but it can be exasabated by one and the same with svt, I'm sorry to ramble lol hope I helped