I'M GOING CRAZY!!!!

[patrica]

I would like to know something.  I am a 39 year old female who suffers from heart palpitations (4 or 5 times per day) - (have had all testing and the doctors say nothing is wrong), yet I feel it hard skipping or going irregular).  I have developed severe anxiety over these irregular heartbeats and what I believe are panic attacks.  

My question is, I think about these skipping heartbeats constantly (probably 14 hours out of the 16 hours I am awake). I live in complete fear of them happening.  

I was laying in bed this morning and was thinking about my heart and could feel my stomach getting tense just thinking about it so I got up and decided to take my shower.  I felt a skipped heartbeat and went into panic mode.  My heart continued to skip every third beat for the next 15 minutes (I am SO SCARED when it does this).  I feel like I am going crazy with this.  In the past I have tried Buspar (which didn't do a darn thing for me except give me a headache), and went to my doctor last Wednesday and asked for Paxil.  She did put me on it (10mg) per day, but I still feel scared and tense all of the time. This is totally controlling my life.  I really need to find a solution to dealing with my heart.  Does it sound like panic attacks I am experiencing?  Can I bring on irregular heartbeats just thinking about them?  Can the tension and panic attacks make a persons heart skip every third beat like that?  How long does it take the Paxil to make the anxiety go away?  It has been 8 days now that I am on it.  Should the dosage be increased? What is your suggestion to dealing with such a situation? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

[bjay]

carol,i've had the type of heartbeat for fo 42 years now.i've had the monitors ,tests,pills etc .the main thing to do is to teach yourself not to think about it, especially while its happening,BE CALM,think of something nice..i do have ativan which i might take one or even just a half once in awhile,30  1 mg. lasts me sometimes 6 mos..But the main thing is to keep calm,,,bjay

[barbara to pain and lortab]

You sound like a sick person mentally. Many hundreds of thousands of people are helped by doctors and medications every single day.

If you are one of those new age holy rollers, then I suggest you go meditate yourself out of your obvious jealousy and hostility toward people who are intelligent and obtain success. Some Doctors are greedy, yes, but most go into the field of medicine to really help people. The Doctors here on this forum are doing their thing for free here, so you are barking up the wrong tree BABY!!!!!!!!!

[Victoria]

Disease & ailments of any kind are also metaphorical... Meaning they also give clues to the emotions that have caused the physical problem. Ask yourself some deeper questions. Because I haven't followed or listened to my heart I now have "heart" problems. Because I haven't listened to my inner voices... now I have a heart murmur. This seems too simple & too new age right? Right! But there is some truth in it. If your heart was a person, what would it say to you? Ask it. There is no pill for your ill. Read some of these firsthand accounts about Paxil, etc. You will prolong your dilemmas & end up with one more problem later on -  try to solve for yourself. Have a heart, be your own best friend. No one really has the answers for us, we have to find it in ourselves. Don't expect anyone to care as much about you as YOU. Open your heart up to yourself, these ******* Doctors go home to their expensive homes & are living the good life off others disease & emotional problems. They directly profit from it & so do the drug companies. Do you really think they want to cure anybody? They'd go out of business if there weren't sick, confused people. What is your hearts desire, follow it & find yourself in the process. Gd luck.

[Victoria]

Disease & ailments of any kind are also metaphorical... Meaning they also give clues to the emotions that have caused the physical problem. Ask yourself some deeper questions. Because I haven't followed or listened to my heart I now have "heart" problems. Because I haven't listened to my inner voices... now I have a heart murmur. This seems too simple & too new age right? Right! But there is some truth in it. If your heart was a person, what would it say to you? Ask it. There is no pill for your ill. Read some of these firsthand accounts about Paxil, etc. You will prolong your dilemmas & end up with one more problem later on -  try to solve for yourself. Have a heart, be your own best friend. No one really has the answers for us, we have to find it in ourselves. Don't expect anyone to care as much about you as YOU. Open your heart up to yourself, these ******* Doctors go home to their expensive homes & are living the good life off others disease & emotional problems. They directly profit from it & so do the drug companies. Do you really think they want to cure anybody? They'd go out of business if there weren't sick, confused people. What is your hearts desire, follow it & find yourself in the process. Gd luck.

[HFHS MD-JM]

Carol,

     It does sound like you are experiencing panic attacks.  It is also possible that this is a reaction to noticing your irregular heartbeat.  You mentioned that you have been medically cleared and I assume that you may have had a Holter monitor done which can be helpful in this situation.  It generally takes 4-6 weeks trial of a medication with dose titration to see if it will be helpful.  Paxil should probably be increased to 20 mg daily after one week if you are not having any problems tolerating it.  Some patients need as much as 60 mg of Paxil daily to help with panic symptoms.  Buspar has no benefit in the treatment of panic attacks but a benzodiazepine like Klonopin or Xanax may be helpful immediately while the Paxil is 'kicking in'.  Please discuss this further with your psychiatrist/physician.  

Sincerely,

HFHS MD-JM

Keywords:  Panic attacks, anxiety, Paxil, Xanax, Klonopin

[Barbara]

Anxiety can cause or aggravate irregular heartbeat problems. I have many skipped beats every minute due to Mitral valve prolapse. It's a benign condition and the doc told me the beats are not serious only a nuisance. Many years ago I too was obsessed with thinking about the skipped beats causing a heart attack or whatever. The doc put me on a beta-blocker which controlled the iregular beats. There are side effects with Inderal though so I eventually went off it and and finally got used the arrythmia problem.

I have an anxiety disorder and yes the skipped beats are much more frequent during an anxiety attack.