Tachycardia day and night

[Rwh]

I’m 71 years old. I had my first panic attack at 19. Back then “panic attack” wasn’t in the lexicon. Through trial and error they found Valium worked the best for me. After 15 years they switched me to Ativan (lorazepam) 2mg 3x day. I’ve never needed nor wanted more. I still had panic attacks but the generalized anxiety lowered in intensity. About 13 years ago my panic attacks stopped, two years ago I began to get depressed and lost interest in many things I loved to do. Two years ago my generic lorazepam seemed a bit less effective. Early this year I found out the manufacturer had changed. Whether my imagination or fact I believed it was not the same quality medication.

During this past summer i noticed my heart rate would go into the 130’s while mowing the lawn. Maybe it always did but with my heart rate watch I was aware of it now. Other times while gardening I would go into the 150’s. In September I noticed while kneeling/weeding I was at 160 bpm. Scared me a bit and went to the ER. My ekg was okay as was my bloodwork. They recommended I see a cardiologist. Meanwhile, after complaining about depression and fatigue like I’d never known, my pcp did some thyroid bloodwork. TSH, T3, and T4 were okay but my thyroglobulin antibodies were double the maximum normal. Meanwhile I’m finding my heart rate will climb during the day with any effort at all.even walking slowly on the treadmill...in 5 minutes the other day I went to 142 bpm and just stepped off......about a month ago I noticed for a while I had been awakening 6-9 times a night...particularly after dreaming (even very benign dreams)....using an oximeter I found my heart rate upon awakening after dreaming was anywhere from 85-105 bpm. My normal resting heart rate is 55-60. (Low, I guess from rbbb/lafb from ekg-15 years ago a cardiologist told me I was probably born with it after stress test-ignore it) .....

So I figured..okay...time to get over my fear of specialists and see a cardiologist. He took an ekg (hadn’t even looked at it by the time I left which surprised me), 3 days later I had an echocardiogram and wore a 7-day holter monitor where I ‘marked’ numerous events both day and night. Now I wait for results..not until 4 more days..I don’t wait well. My ‘guess’ is my issues are due to one or more of the following:

- I have something wrong with my heart
- I have something wrong with my thyroid (earliest appt. I could get with endocrinologist is December 31st!
- the manufacturer of my lorazepam (now made in India) has changed the formula.
- after 35+ years my anxiety is breaking through my prescription.

- has anyone had similar issues? (Yes, I know, throw away the oximeter and the watch-my wife and docs all agree.)

[Careful1]

Thyroid problems are famous for causing palpitations..

Waiting for results is never easy but know that if there was something serious caught on the event monitor you wore, they would have contacted you immediately.

[Rwh]

I hope that would be the case. Thanks so much for replying.

[Rwh]

I sincely wish there were more replies.

[ankietyjoe]

Have you been under a lot of stress lately, perhaps connected with the increase in depression two years ago?

I had a period of my life where my heart behaved this way, it would spike at any given opportunity. Noticing and monitoring it became it's own self perpetuating trigger.

There are so many reasons why you could be suffering with this condition, and a lot of them are maybe dietary or lifestyle based it's hard to offer any accurate advice, but I certainly wouldn't rule out a simple nutritional deficiency.

[Rwh]

Yes, i’ve Been under even more stress than normal this past two years.....I don’t due well with depression making me lose interest in the few things I love...painting and gardening.....I am also sole caregiver to my wife of 48 years...now in a wheelchair from post polio syndrome.....hence I do all the cleaning, wash, food shopping, cooking, etc in addition the my artwork and maintaining the garden though I’ve had little time, energy or interest for the latter these past two years. It’s not just the fatigue that bothers me..it’s the lack of desire to do things.....I used to work continuously for decades then I seem to just hit a wall at age 69. It was also at that time that my lorazepam treating my anxiety disorder changed manufacturers.....unfortunately, there are only two mfrs available in Pharma around me...and both now are ineffective like the one I took years ago. I never used to lay around but every chance I get for the past two years I lie on the bed. And REALLY bizarre for me...the last three months I’ve been sleeping most of the morning after waking at 6am...I used to get up, now I go back to sleep until 11am......never did that before unless I had the flu....

---------- Post added at 18:14 ---------- Previous post was at 18:13 ----------

And yes..monitoring is driving me AND my wife crazy!

[ankietyjoe]

Sorry to hear about your wife, I understand what that's like.

I think stress is the issue here. It has a habit of wearing you down and compromising the systems that keep your body in check.

Your symptoms mirror those that I used to suffer with (including the depression, sleep, fatigue and heart problems).

I would urge you to take a look at your diet, and perhaps adjust it to include way, way more veg (and to a lesser extent fruit). The recommended 5 a day (in the UK at least) just doesn't cut it. I found that keeping my fruit and veg intake to 10-15 portions a day helps massively. Being stressed burns through your bodies resources really fast, and causes hormonal imbalances due to increased cortisol and adrenaline. This is often called adrenal fatigue.

I also started to meditate daily to deal with the stress, and this is extremely effective when done properly.

[Rwh]

Diet? I think I may be okay here......15 years ago I weighed 304 lbs..one day going to shower after gardening and before going back to my easel, I climbed the stairs and huffed and puffed...got to the shower and decide ‘that’s enough’.....I never ate fish...I began eating fish...I never ate salads...now I love salads.....I didn’t starve myself....I just didn’t have second helpings and ate smart..lots of veggies...to this day I still make a canned veggie salad of carrots green beans, beets, mushrooms and chick peas that I eat sometimes for lunch or just a snack...for dinner I enjoy zucchini, carrots, mushrooms and green beans...3 oz of poultry and maybe a potato (no butters, oils or fats added. Problem is...I lost 100lbs that year and wound up with gallstones...they keep me honest and I keep my gallbladder. I enjoy fruit for desserts, don’t drink or smoke....a boring life to be sure, lol....

[ankietyjoe]

Not boring tbh, I used to drink a lot and smoke..I now find that lifestyle boring.

What's left then is the stress. If you've been tested for heart problems and they've come back negative, the stress is surely the most likely cause of the problems.

[Careful1]

Diet? I think I may be okay here......15 years ago I weighed 304 lbs..one day going to shower after gardening and before going back to my easel, I climbed the stairs and huffed and puffed...got to the shower and decide ‘that’s enough’.....I never ate fish...I began eating fish...I never ate salads...now I love salads.....I didn’t starve myself....I just didn’t have second helpings and ate smart..lots of veggies...to this day I still make a canned veggie salad of carrots green beans, beets, mushrooms and chick peas that I eat sometimes for lunch or just a snack...for dinner I enjoy zucchini, carrots, mushrooms and green beans...3 oz of poultry and maybe a potato (no butters, oils or fats added. Problem is...I lost 100lbs that year and wound up with gallstones...they keep me honest and I keep my gallbladder. I enjoy fruit for desserts, don’t drink or smoke....a boring life to be sure, lol....

This same thing happened to me in 2010!! I did the medifast diet and lost 42 pounds in a tad less then 2 months... I felt fabulous but once I started going back to regular food I would wake in the night in terrible pain. After months of attacks and many test including a cardiac cath at just 28 years old they finally did an abdominal ultrasound in the ER and found a gallstone stuck in the neck of my gallbladder blocking the bile from coming out and my gallbladder was removed 19 days later. I then did some research and found this actually isnt all that uncommon when people go on low carb diets for a while...