Bradycardia

[Brittbeagle]

So I have pretty bad health anxiety related to the heart ever since I went to the ER for the first time 2 years age with what I was told was "probably just anxiety". However, while I was there they found abnormalities with my heart (suspected Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome - extra electrical pathways causing abnormal firing and extreme rapid heart rate). After a year of testing my electrophysiologist said that he could "neither confirm, nor deny (I) have WPW", but wasn't too concerned about the shape of my heart. Great. Since then I've been plagued with thoughts about the possibility that I have untreated WPW, and that my heart is just going to give out some day soon. My cousin passed away in his sleep at age 20 from heart failure, but he was never diagnosed in life with anything so no one knows why his heart just stopped beating (no drugs or alcohol in his system during autopsy).

Anyway, just as my fear of WPW began to fade slightly, I noticed that my heart has gone in the other direction and I have recently found myself with bradycardia (I'm talking between 30-40 bpm multiple times daily, during which I get bone-crushing fatigue but am too scared to go to sleep, so I push through). My GP was very concerned, but my electrophysiologist said to me "you must be super-fit!" and tells me that he's not going to treat it. I was fit when I was younger, but have been pretty much housebound for the last 3 years and I'm a smoker. So here I am back to square 1 thinking they've missed something and my heart is going to drop so low that it's just going to stop.

I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm not being taken seriously, and now I've been painted with the anxiety brush, everything is being explained away with that. I live alone with my 5 year old daughter and am terrified something is going to happen.

What can I do? I'm driving myself crazy and no one wants a bar of me because I'm constantly fearful of dying.

[nomorepanic]

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your post was moved from its original place to a sub-forum that is more relevant to your issue.

This is nothing personal - it just enables us to keep posts about the same problems in the relevant forums so other members with any experience with the issues can find them more easily.

[Brittbeagle]

Thanks for letting me know. I just figured it was HA related, that's why I posted it there. Sorry.

[netminder1976]

I have a slow heart rate too. Last time I was at the doctors it was 52 and they just said that was great. Sometimes sitting here in the evenings I notice it goes down to 45-48 but then usually hovers around 52-58 while sitting. The key is whether or not it rises when you become active. I posted on here scared of a slow heartbeat over six years ago and here. Am worrying about the same thing. My mothe also has a slow heart rate. Last time she had surgery on her wrist at first they weren't going to do it because her heart rate was 48 but she told them it's always like that.