Heart stop

[anxietymadman123]

My heart sometimes feels like it stops I've recently had a few ecgs and echo should I worry? I've heard this could be anxiety

[Hidden]

Hello

This is something typical wen you have anxiety

Mine has done a great big thud feeling it has missed a beat many times , took my breath away when it has

If you have been checked out which you have and got the all clear you have to believe what they are telling you even though your anxiety sounds like it is winning at the moment telling you otherwise

Not sure if you are getting any treatment for your health anxiety and it can be hard to try and deal with it on your own so I would really think about asking your Doctor about support with all this as that will help you more than you can imagine

lulu-1

[Midgeymoo17]

Not sure what you mean by 'feels like your heart stops' normally one should not be able to feel your heart beat anyway so one could not tell the difference.

Now I have a fair degree of experience with the heart tests you mention. If there was any significant structural disease to the heart this would have shown on the echocardiogram. So if you have had the results and they are clear you can be very confident in that the pumping chambers and valves are working just fine.

However, electrical disturbances are much harder to diagnose. Irrespective of the number of ECG's ( I am now totalling somewhere between 50 and 100 plus a 3 year implantable continuous ECG) one can still not catch them if disturbances are irregular. To be honest if the feeling is not regular enough to occur once in 24hrs , is in the absence of any significant structural disease (as shown by the echo) and you present with no other symptoms of a dangerous disturbance, the situation would normally be risk assessed as low risk (likely non-cardiac cause such as anxiety) and little the impact on quality of life requiring no further investigation.

If you have had:

1) Normal ECG

2) 24hr ambulatory ECG (if symptom is regular)

3) Echocardiogram

You can be confident that every effort reasonable has been made to rule out a true heart problem and (although not zero as this is not achievable) the chances of a true heart problem have been substantially minimised.

Source: 21 years as a cardiac patient due to a congenital heart defect. The advice here is what was said/understood by me when faced with similar challenges.