Pheo or not?

Hi,

I've been battling with a heart condition since I was about 13. Here is a detailed breakdown of how it happens: A strange sensation comes over me (I later on identified this and calmed myself down to avoid an "attack"), i then feel a strange feeling in my top left part of my heart. If I don't calm myself down, my heart goes into overdrive. It beats extremely fast and hard. My vision gets blurry. I usually need to lie down for the palpitations to go away. This is then followed by high blood pressure and a severe head ache. After the first "attack", I was taken to a cardiologist who did all sorts of tests on me: blood, ecg, ultrasound, stress. But all tests were inconclusive. Over the years I've learned to control it. The second I get the strange feeling in my heart, I sit down and try and relax - to avoid the palpitations. The high blood pressure and headaches remain, however.

This usually only happened about every 3 months and only for about 10minutes at a time.

I am almost 25 now and the other night I had a sensation like that again. It started at 23:00 and lasted all the way to the next morning. I went to the hospital, but as luck would have it, stopped while they were running an ECG. Since that night, it has been a daily experience.

I don't drink or smoke.

Is this signs of a Pheo?

[Fernando Roque, MD]

Hi.  It's quite possible that the symptoms you described may indicate pheochromocytoma.  The classic symptoms of this condition include severe hypertension, headaches, palpitations and episodic sweating.  However, these symptoms are not specific for pheochromocytoma and can occur in other conditions.  If pheochromocytoma is suspected, this has to be confirmed by doing either a plasma metanephrine or 24-hour urinary catecholamine and metanephrine testing. An abdominal CT or MRI should also be done to look for adrenal masses (over 90% of pheochromocytomas are located in the adrenals).