Palps/Bradycardia

[JDexter319]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the board, but wanted to start with what made me find this community.

I am a 51 y/o male, and I have had skipped beats/palpitations for the last few months. It started off in waves (a few days of them, then normal again, etc) and since about a month ago, they are now 24/7. It has caused a great deal of stress for me, and is seriously impacting my life because I cannot get past this.

It exacerbates my already problematic anxiety.

A couple of other things that go along with this, I have Bradycardia, and have known about that for several years now. My heart rate is usually in the 50s, though in the afternoons its in the upper 40s. I am also a Type-1 diabetic, with Hypothryoidism (since the surgery to remove the thyroid years ago). As you can tell, I won the genetic lottery, huh?

I did end up going to the emergency room last week, because the dizziness that I have been feeling had gotten even more pronounced. I really was embarrassed by going there. Anyway, they ran a bunch of tests, and my xrays came back normal, as did the blood tests, and they did see the skips on the cardiac monitor, but the doctor said the heart rhythm was normal other than the skipped beats. He told me to follow up with my cardiologist. My cardiologist also isn't too concerned. The skips sometimes come every 3rd beat, or they can come in oddball sequences, like 3rd beat, 7th beat, 2nd beat, 20th beat, etc. There's no rhyme or reason for the order they come in, and it is starting to freak me out.

Problem is, no one wants to bother finding out where they are coming from or why they started like they did. I almost feel like I have been dismissed, whch I'm sure a lot of people feel that way.

I do have my yearly physical with my primary this Thursday, and Monday is my quarterly diabetes check up, so I will be sure to mention all of this to both of them.

I've been doing meditations the last few days (thehonestguys on youtube, they're awesome!), and although it does distract me while doing them, it hasn't helped otherwise. I'm going to keep it up though, because at least I have some peace while doing it.

I do work, I have my own business, and work 6 days a week, probably close to 70 hours a week sometimes. This is obviously affecting my work as well.

I guess I just wanted to share that with a group of people who probably understand how this feels. If anyone has any suggestions on how to proceed, I would greatly appreciate it. People in my circle don't really say much because I'm sure they don't know what to think or how to deal with all this. Makes for a very isolating situation.

Thanks again for listening, I do appreciate it!

[senochs2]

I'm in a similar situation so I can relate. I have anxiety, been type 1 diabetic since I was 11(I'm now 30) and I too have the same heart irregularity(exactly as you described is what I have). After wearing a heart monitor for 2 weeks, EKG, ultrasound, blood work, x rays and stress test it shows that my upper valve isn't always in sync with the lower valve BUT it's nothing that will cause damage to the heart and will not effect the longevity of my life.

Just out of curiosity, when your anxiety is elevated do you find it harder to control your blood sugar as I do?

[JDexter319 in reply to senochs2]

Hi! Thanks for replying. Funny you mention the blood sugar, because yes, it's been problematic in the past couple of week. One of the oddest things I've had happen with it is that for several days, I couldn't take any Novolog, because my sugar would not stop dropping. So for a few days I was using only my Lantus at night and nothing else. I've never really had that issue before, so it kind of threw me.

[senochs2 in reply to JDexter319]

I take humalog and lantus and I too have found myself not taking humalog for a couple days, then there's other times I can't get enough humalog in me to keep it down but it's only like this during moments of anxiety. Atleast we now know we're not alone!

[senochs2]

I should mention also I suffer from dizziness too, been about 6 months and they still can't find the source of it