One of those days

[Stephanie89]

I been having a pretty good week since last Friday but for some. Reason today my anxiety is hitting my hard and my heart beat keeps racing to 197 bpm and it’s never done that nor rehab one time in a day that I know of now I’m feeling like I’m going to fall over and die I am freaking out and today was the day i was going to get outside and do something now I feel discouraged and want to curl up in a ball for the fear something is terribly wrong and my heart is going to stop I was going on a good straight week now his happens 😭

[foxglove_pnw]

Hi Stephanie ,

I am sorry you are feeling like that ! Anxiety can raise your heart rate and your blood pressure for sure !

How are you measuring your heart rate ?

Are you taking any medication ? I take Lexapro and I take Ativan as needed ! Sometimes I need Ativan since I can’t get my anxiety down with other coping skills!

If you need to stop at a Urgent care to talk to a doctor do that ! I have done that before ! It gives me a piece of mind that is only my anxiety !

Good luck ! I am here if you need to chat !

[Stephanie89 in reply to foxglove_pnw]

Hi thank you

I have my Apple Watch and that how I am able to keep track of my heart rate

I tried taking cymbalta for a few days and I didn’t like it

But I am seeing a therapist and I was feeling a little better I just need to manage my anxiety it’s so hard once I feel not good my moms automatically goes to I’m going to die

[Hidden in reply to Stephanie89]

Hello Stephanie, just saw your post. Please be really careful with HR readings from any watch. My own experience is that, sometimes, the readings can be faulty-too high, too low. It happened to me with Fitbit Ionic and also Samsung gear. The reason can be a simple build up of sweat. Sometimes it just doesn t work the way it should and even wearing it higher or lower on the wrist can manipulate the readings. Is it too high we react like:what? Holy moly, that can t be.. It never has been that high, OMG... These thoughts fuel our anxiety, more adrenaline is released.. HR goes up even more... we re terrified, more adrenaline.... You see, the vicious circle goes round and round. If you are concerned just try to tell yourself:ok, it s a guideline only, I can check it properly. If you need to check HR the ordinary way:count beats on your left wrist with right middle finger and ckeck for 30 secs with your phone s timer. at the end you multiply x 2 and you ll know your BPM. This is more reliable than a smartwatch. I have actually disabled HR on my watch because I checked it all the time getting more and more tense. All the best, you can do this x

[Agora1 in reply to Hidden]

Cnocnacu, Very wise advice. Thank you for sharing. xx

[Hidden in reply to Agora1]

Thx, Agora, I went through the same like Stephanie and got this advice from my counsellor. I thought I share it because it helped me big times. All the best to you xx

[Stephanie89 in reply to Hidden]

Hello Cnocnacu Thank you so much for this it gives me clarity cuz it’s so wired how it does that when I don’t feel my heart racing even thought it’s not ready right I have my Apple Watch that I use all the time to see my heart rate but I noticed ever since I got it my heart beat will raise all the way to 200 bpm but now when it does I try not to freak out so much thank you for this useful information I appreciate it

[Hidden in reply to Stephanie89]

You re very welcome, Stephanie. I too am grateful for all advice I get here in the forum. We re in this together. So don t forget: don t check it too often. As soon as we see numbers that are not what we re used to we tend to freak out and make it worse. I m laughing now but let me tell you what happened when I got my Fitbit Ionic. I put it on, checked HR before even setting it up. My HR said 189 and I freaked out, so much that it triggered a severe panic attack. Then I felt my heart racing and the paramedics said it was 132. See? It was the watch and I freaked out. After a while the watch showed normal ish HR but I was always tense while checking. These days I check with timer and only rarely.... But I freak out when I have extra beats If you have an idea how to deal with extra beats... let me know. xx

[Stephanie89 in reply to Hidden]

Yes I am grateful for any advice I get to as well as we are all going through something and I am blessed to have people to talk with yes that’s happened to me about a handful of times and of course it trickers a panic attack and caused me to really freak out I even had an echo gram and holter monitor on my heart and so far echo gram came back perfect so it’s me I need to not look at the numbers but I don’t know how to stop this vicious cycle I even have a monitor to check my blood pressure to it’s horrible but I’m not doing that as often I just need to learn how to wing myself from my watch

[Hidden in reply to Stephanie89]

I started NOT to allow myself to check the watch. The same with blood pressure. I even have a device to take an ECG, because I didn t trust my doctors. So whenever I had palpitations I took an ECG. It made it all worse. Only when my doctor put me on beta blockers to calm my heart, only then I trusted and believed that I m not going to have a heart attack. It was that bad. Try Not to check for a few hours, then half a day... then a day. Try meditation and deep breathing instead. It calms you down