Dizzy vs Lightheaded vs Palpitations

[PeakyO]

This should be a simple question but it turns out it's more complex.

Around 25 years ago I was going through a very stressful time so much so that I was getting heart palpitations, (ectopic heartbeats) and tachycardia. Went to my GP who said it was stress, dealt with the situation and everything went back to normal. (Did have ECG's etc all fine).

Jump forward 15 years. I again was going through a stressful time and started getting heart palpitations again. Went back to the GP (new GP) who again said they thought it was stress. had loads of 12 lead ECG's (including a 24hr one) and an echo cardiogram. These finally showed the irregular heartbeats but the consultant said "we don't know why this happens in some people but it does and it's fine. Ignore it".

Now, I've used the term ectopic heartbeats because I believe this is what they are. The consultant at the hospital didn't call them that, he didn't give them a name at all. I was just talking to someone online once and they said they had ectopic heartbeats, I looked them up and it sounded exactly like what I have. Whenever I speak to my GP about it I always call them ectopic heartbeats and they don't ever correct me so I presume they agree that's what they are.

Anyway. Previously these ectopic heartbeats would rarely make me feel dizzy or lightheaded as generally they only are 1 or 2 skipped/extra beats every 10-30 seconds or so and might only last for 1-3 minutes. Occasionally they might last for an hour or more but not often.

However in the past couple of years I keep getting episodes of feeling dizzy/lightheaded and sometimes it does seem to coincide with either my heart beating faster than normal (my resting heart rate is normally 72bpm but is such circumstances might be as high as 96bpm) or getting lots of ectopic heartbeats over a prolonged period of time.

I've gone to my GP about this in the past and they always just say it's anxiety (I have been diagnosed as having generalised anxiety disorder which was probably brought about by the situations 25 and 15 years ago). The thing is, whilst I recognise and accept that I have GAD, 95% of the time when I went to the GP about this I didn't feel anxious before feeling dizzy or before getting heart palpitations. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg. Is the dizzy/heart palpitations causing the anxiety or is the anxiety causing them.

One question the GP always asks me which I find difficult to answer is "am if feeling dizzy or am I feeling lightheaded?". Dizzy being like the room is spinning, lightheaded being like you are going to pass out.

Having never passed out I don't know what that's like but I always imagined that you would feel like the room was spinning right before hand.

The only way I can describe it is that I have a pressure in my head, right above the forehead and a slight pressure behind the eyes. Moving my head can sometimes make it worse and it feels a bit like everything is floating for a moment or two. I don't get any darkening of vision but it does kinda feel like it's harder to focus, not necessarily because my eye muscles can't focus but like there is a very slight delay between my head moving and my eyes catching up. Is that Dizzy or is that Lightheaded? The whole things feels like my head is 'foggy'.

Does anyone else have ectopic heartbeats on a regular basis and do you get dizzy/lightheaded and what does that feel like to you.

Being hugely overweight I am very concerned about heart disease and as a result I know this does feed into my GAD and don't want to give it any more energy by focusing on those fears and reading too much into it but at the same time I don't want to ignore something I should be paying attention to.

[Ashleigh_BHF]

Hi PeakyO

Sorry to hear you've been struggling with symptoms from ectopic beats.

Sometimes patients with anxiety who have palpitations or ectopics and feel they are difficult to cope with can take beta blockers to help manage the symptoms, and this would best be discussed with your GP if you feel this may be an option for you.

Best of luck,

Ashleigh

[Prada47]

Hello PeakyO

I have Ectopic heart beats, they can be random or very regular an Ectopic every 5 beats is not uncommon. Ectopic Beats are I believe very easy to see on an ECG and on a 24 hour Holter Monitor. I would need to fish out the copy of my Holter Monitor Readings. Just fished it out.

24 hour Holter Monitor Normal Sinus Rhythm, Heart Rate Ranging between 52 bpm and 118 bpm. Ventricular Ectopics accounting for 8.1% of total recordings and Atrial Ectopics 3.4 % of overall recordings. So as you can see the Holter Monitor gives a pretty good picture of what's going on !!!

The busiest time for my Ectopic Beats is after having a Meal !!!! I can get light headed if I have a run of Ectopic, but I do have other Heart Issues.

Hope this helps a little !!

Regards

Frank W

[Nanne]

Hi This is identical to what happened to me! I was a fit healty gym bunny and had just taken up running a was training for a 10K. I started getting very dizzy on my runs and my heart would seem to stop. However 5 years before I had an angiogram and the cardiologist told me there was nothing wrong. His bedside manner implied I was a stupid little woman so every time I got random heart beats, or felt dizzy or faint I ignored it. I did actually pass out once but got a similar reaction from A&E.

One day in a class at the gym I had to stop 3 times because of the heartbeat and dizziness and at one stage I got an awful clamp like pain in my arm. I was so worried I went to A&E. They admitted me as I was actually having a heart attack caused by atrial fibrilation. The heart had stopped between beats for so long the blood had pooled and clotted. I am very lucky to still be alive. I was in hospital for 10 days, had a raft of tests, ECG, Angiogram, Echocardiogram and a transoesophageal Echocardigram. I was of great interest to the whole cardiology team at the time. I was fitted with a pacemaker.

What makes me most angry is that this was all avoidable and I have now be left with heart failure and can no longer run or hike up lake districct fells ( or any hill for that matter)