Young man with Palpitations and Tachycardia. Help

[SnowNin]

I'm a 27 years old male, dealing with palpitatons/tachycardia/flutters for about three years. I've had Echocardiograms, ekgs, Holters and blood tests. Cardiologist tells me of relax because I just "have a sensitive electrical syatem". What is that suppose to mean?

This year I have been living a pretty sedentary life style because most times, if I excercice, I will get palpitations. This has been going on for a long time and I've felt no other symptom except for dizziness once.

Now, lately, I've been feeling other things like vertigo but I must admit that I've been obsessing over my palpitations and that has made me anxious.

I've been taken beta blockers and they have help with the svt and palps I get with posture changes but I still get them with excercice, especially if such excercice is sudden.

Should I try to excercice despite the palpitations?

What can I do to manage my health anxiety?

Thanks for reading.

[Equi-geek]

Hi 👋 You’ve been through the mill! I have very mild supra ventricular tachycardia where the electrical patterns from the vagus nerve misfire and my heart beats out of sync. So the blood doesn’t get around my system efficiently and I would gradually ‘white out’. It started when I was 18 and a cheerleader and it was pretty scary, I thought I was having a heart attack!

So the first thing I learned was the vagus nerve has something to do with ‘fight or flight’ - and the more worried I was the longer the tachycardia would go on for. The next thing I did was keep a note of when I would trigger the episode. At first it seemed quite random but as the years went on I realised that it would happen when I was suddenly physically active and raising my heart rate too quickly. I used to do taekwondo and our ‘warm up’ would be jumping on the spot on a hard wooden floor, whiletrying to get both knees up to chest. Never failed to trigger an episode!!!! So then ‘warm up slowly’ became my norm and the episodes reduced.

So then I had to figure out how to stop the tachycardia if it happened. If I laid flat on my back, closed my eyes and focussed on my breathing, my heart would eventually stop racing. The hardest thing for me during that would be everyone else panicking. So any time I would do something new I would explain SVT to people around me and tell them that they shouldn’t panic if it looked like I suddenly needed to start meditating!! That in itself helped me to relax and the episode numbers dropped to maybe twice a year.

In time, when I was triggered, I’d just think ‘oh, here we go!’ And one time I was on a horse. I couldn’t lay down. So I just bent forward and pretended to cuddle the horse’s neck, while I shut my eyes and did a few deep breaths and the episode ended before anyone else realised.

So last year I started running for the first time in my life (I’m now 50) and I did ‘Couch to 5k’ with no trouble at all. I ran Parkrun yesterday with an average HR of 186bpm over 31 minutes. No problem. I also swim, no problem. And just started cycling too. There are a couple of people I know at Parkrun with heart conditions and some are under strict pace orders and others have to be more careful than me as they’ve just been diagnosed.

So, I would try to understand as much as possible about your condition and work with it. You will have to be mindful of exercising alone and ensuring someone knows where you are at all times. Also be mindful that if you do have a problem, any stranger can easily find what might be the problem. I have a Parkrun wristband that has ‘SVT’ and an emergency contact phone number printed on it. Anyone can register for Parkrun and order one - even if you never ever run!

Anyway, I am off for a ‘long run’ this morning - hoping to do a 10K today. Good luck!!!

[SnowNin in reply to Equi-geek]

Thanks for your message! It's always good to know about stories like yours. I admire how you have confronted your issues and kept living your life.

[Onboat74]

Your symptoms are exactly like mine. I had the holster monitor for 30 days an echocardiogram then another echocardiogram with contrast solution a stress test then an MRI of the heart with contrast a chest X-ray many ekg tests

over and over tons of blood test two hospitals told me all normal they tell me everyone gets what they call PVC and PAC which are Palpations. Some from the bottom pac or pvc from the top chambers but nothing makes me feel better that I’m getting them it doesn’t ease my mind probably because the first hospital and supposedly the best rated heart hospital in my area wanted to do an electrophysiogy ep study with a possible ablation. I decided against it because they where giving me conflicting reports first saying I had a serverly dilated left atrium on the echocardiogram then running other test like the mri saying that it’s not dilated all measurements normal but worse you have a weak out flow on the bottom chamber of the heart but your stress test looks normal. So I checked out and went to another good hospital to have them check me out and got two other opinions they both said heart is strong and it’s all normal after there echostudy and reading the reports. I’m on a beta blocker too and switched them around because I don’t have high blood pressure and I feel they contribute to my heart palpitons a bit and bring my heart rate so low. It beats in the 40’s and when I don’t take them I’m fine it’s around 58-60 so when I do take them I go into bradycardia. They tell me keep taking the lowest dose it’s ok and will help control the palpitions but they don’t. I’m now going into NYC to one of the top hospitals the forth one and seeing an electrophysiologist there who specializes in palpitions and ablations and see what he says. This all happen to me out of the blue three months ago I’m 45.

I started getting the palpitions and fluttering. I feel I can’t excersice much anymore because Im getting the palpitions the fluttering sometimes after exercise I go into sinus tachycardia from panic from the palpitions that start to happen. My adrenaline and cordial levels are probably up. My heart will race up from fear when it happens. I’m obsessed for sure with all of this and it’s what is causing some of my issues. I have a small hand held ekg monitor from emay I bought. I also have the new Apple 4 watch which does the ekg monitor and checks for afib I’m constantly checking my ekg. I’m going crazy and then it beeps and says low heart rate or high heart rate. I’m obsessed I guess with finding a way to get rid of these because its happening everyday and depressing. I believe this is all stress related most likely the fluttering the heart palpations. Stress can cause a lot of bad things to happen. The best solution probably is to try and give up let it go forget about the palpitions when they happen relax take medication for anxiety for a bit an see a cognitive therapist. Slowly excersice a bit until feeling confident again. I started taking Ashwagandha, lemon balm, gt magnesium Sensoril is suppose to help with anxity and palpitons. Maybe mediation I’ll try also. I hope we both get better soon. It’s probably anxiety related when the doctors check you out and say your ok I guess we need to learn to relax and maybe it gets better. I’ll keep you updated if I find and solution. Take care .

[Kardy in reply to Onboat74]

Hello Onboat74

I have the same problem with beta blockers! My pulse is 50’s since the heat flutter began in Dec 2018, but scarily drops to 40’s when I take beta blockers. It feels like a no win situation at the moment. I hope you get some help soon

[TinCool]

I was having palpitations for about 6 months from September last year. They started after my appendix burst. I had to be cardioverted twice in that period. After the first cardioversion I started to take magnesium taurate. This helped with the palpitations somewhat. What I found great was taking a hot bath with magnesium salts. I found it very relaxing and stopped my palps for a couple of hours.

I was eventually prescribed bisoprolol by my Dr but a couple of weeks later I had to be cardioverted again. The ER Dr doubled my dose of bisoprolol to 2.5mg (still a very low dose). The palpitations have pretty much stopped now going on about a month. I get the odd one here and there which doesn't bother me too much as they're not as severe. I was getting 100's a day at one point.

Stress for me is definitely a factor. I had a lot going on during that period. My family life is difficult with an autistic child and wife who is on anti depressants. I started to see a councillor which also helped with methods of dealing with situations and keeping me calm. I had a very stressful day last week and the following evening I was experiencing palpitations again. Thankfully they disappeared the next day.

So my advice. Try magnesium salts, they're great. Keep calm and avoid stress wherever possible. If all else fails go see your GP and see if they can do anything for you. Good luck.

[Melissab122]

Try magnesium citrate supplements. You could be deficient and that could be playing a huge part in your symptoms. See my post on the correlation and the article I shared. Good luck!

[SnowNin in reply to Melissab122]

I think I will try that. I've had many lab test done and I dont seem to have any deficiency but I believe there is no actual magnesium lab test available, so who knows...

[TinCool in reply to SnowNin]

Your magnesium levels can be checked but is not included in a standard blood test. You cannot overdo magnesium as if your body has optimum levels, any excess just passes through naturally. That's what I've read at least.