Heart Concerns

[Dhall90]

Hi there, new here!

I just wanted to see if anyone had any similar experiences to what I have had recently. Apologies in advance for essay.

Roughly 11 weeks ago I reported an issue to my doctor as I had noticed that my palpitations/ectopics seemed worse than usual. This is a sensation in which my heart would suddenly bang against my chest and flutter, and then return to normal. I have had these on and off for 10 years so I've never really thought much of them and I've had an ECG in the past, however not long after moving to my new place I was kept awake with them all night getting them quite regularly.

I've suffered with anxiety in the past and it usually centres around my heart and health. My anxiety had already been steadily ramping up but around the time of reporting this issue to my doctor it really exploded, i have been in pretty much constant worry, panic and distress ever since, I have now started therapy so I'm hoping this helps.

In between waiting for the 24 hour monitor to be fitted I ended up in a&e a couple of times, they gave me blood tests and ECGs each time which were all fine, then i finally had the heart monitor fitted, when doing so they gave me another ECG and mentioned that I have a very slight arythmia, but completely normal for someone my age (31) and nothing of concern. Ironically, i didn't notice the usual symptom of what I would get with my heart whilst using the event monitor so I wasn't able to record any, however I'm lead to believe that they assess everything over the 24 hour period, not just the events tracked, can anyone confirm?

A couple of days after the monitor had been returned I noticed that at pretty much every night when winding down to go to sleep I would start getting a noticeable irregular heartbeat, like my heart would skip beats, I have had this in the past but it would usually go away after a night or two. I have now had it almost every night when falling to sleep for about 5/6 weeks, and it's driving me crazy! I have noticed it a few times during the day also, but not as prominently as I do at night. I have also recently woken up with it, this morning for example I woke up around 7am suddenly, my heart rhythm was off and I felt the skipping sensation, soon after coming to after waking up it went away.

I also had a raft of physical symptoms which I know come with an anxiety disorder, such a chest tightness (feels like it's difficult to get a lung full of air), muscle pain and tension, muscle spasms and a whole host of other things.

Is this similar to what anyone else has had here? I'm really trying hard to get my anxiety in check but it's quite difficult to do so when I keep getting unexplained symptoms like this, my mind can't help but race and go to the worst place scenario.

Thank you!

[Careful1]

Anxiety will make ectopics worse and unfortunately the more you worry and stress over them the more they will happen. The best thing you can do is ignore them as best you can and eventually you will begin to notice them less and less.

I’m not sure if you were fitted with a 24 hour holter monitor or an event monitor. A holter monitor records every single heart beat for 24 hours and at the end the report tells how many heart beats you had over 24 hours, your maximum heart rate, your min heart rate and anything abnormal. An event monitor is usually worn anywhere from 2 weeks to 30 days and runs on a loop, you make a recording any time you have symptoms. The doctor will check the recordings you made for any abnormalities but it also automatically records any abnormalities without you triggering a recording. So for instance if you had any arrhythmia that you did not feel the machine automatically detects it and makes a recording for the doctor to review and so your covered either way.