doctor thinks im mad!

[love87]

Hi everyone,
Im 27 and suffered from palpitations for around ten years now. Good days I may have one or 2 skipped beats, bad day I have them every 3rd beat all day long. I have learned to live with them. I have been diagnosed with social anxiety and agrophobia, yet I dont feel anxious at all. Anyway 5 days ago I got put of the car and felt the strangest strong vibration in my chest with a banging irregular heartbeat. It was so scary it took my breath and lasted about 30 seconds but felt like 30 minutes. When it was over my heart was racing. I didn't check but ot was definatly over 100 bpm. I have had a few more episodes since but not as bad. Been to doctor today who took my pulse and said I was fine but gave me a beta blocker. Please tell me this is normal. I'm having a lot of skipped beats lately too but I can handle them. These "episodes" have me so down I dont even want to get up in the mornings.it has never happened before. Thanks in advance and I look forward to making new friends here.

[love87]

oh it happened again last night. i came so close to phoning and ambulance but my husband wouldn't let me. vibrating/fluttering in chest and my heartbeat went like this "skip skip beat skip skip skip beat skip beat" (not exactly but that sort of pattern) lasted about 10 minutes was left with a very very fast heartbeat, not sure if its because i was panicking when i felt it or not also had a feeling of somthing stuck in my throat and sort of pukey. i feel like the doctor is brushing me off and its really scaring me....i just need reassurance that this is normal or common.

[kezzal]

have you tried doing a deep strong cough? i find this helps me sometimes x

[love87]

Thank you for reply, yes I've tried coughing it doesnt seem to help it. My heart rate gets so fast its hard to keep count of the skips and beats. Im so scared its vfib but from what I've read you'll pass out really quickly with vfib. My episodes last between 3 and 10 minutes so it cant be that. They are terrifying. I keep thinking my heart rhythem wont come back to normal. Typical that docs cant catch it on ekg either as it never happens when im getting one done.

[Aaahhfreakout]

It sounds like you need a portable Holter monitor for perhaps a week to try and catch this arrhythmia. If it's new, they need to check it. Try a different doctor if the current one is not helpful.

It's almost certainly not ventricular fibrillation as you'd pass out. It could, however, be a series of ectopic beats like couplets or triplets or salvos.

Hopefully it's just runs of those when your heart is somewhat more irritable than usual.