Anxiety or heart disease ?

[Zardarian]

Hi, my name is Harry and I'm 24. About six months ago I started having chest pains; well it was more of a feeling pressure under my chest, or heaviness that hurt. It lasted about two months and a few weeks later appeared in more painful form, and that's when I had my first episode of heart palpitation. I was at work and I suddenly had a stomachache that was fallowed by instant heart palpitation. My blood pressure was 150/120. It lasted for about 10 minutes. Than I had the same episode in a few days but this time it started with a hot flash that appeared to start from my toes and spread throughout my body, which was fallowed by a tingling feeling in my throat and then fallowed by instantly increased heartbeat. For about two days I also experienced a feeling of pressure that kept moving from mu chest to my stomach and back again, lasting for few hours and hurt a lot. During all my hear palpitation episodes my pulse was always around 150 per minute. It also happened during sleep, and I was so terrified that slept sitting up for about a week. I had three EKGs that didn't detect anything heart related. I was prescribed Lexapro and Xanax, and they seemed to work. I stopped taking Lexapro in few weeks and have been taking 0.5 mg Xanax daily for about three months now. However, I still sometimes have heart palpitations in a lighter form. And the list of my symptoms has also become longer, including nausea, chest pains, pain above ears, waking up at night with a tingling feeling in my feet and hands and much more. I know that in case of anxiety exercise might help, but since I'm not convinced that it's not heart related I'm afraid to start exercising. I was wondering if anyone has had similar symptoms. Thank you so much in advance.

Sincerely,

Harry Zardarian

[Jerry_NJ]

I see you got some sound advice from a person who shares some of your symptoms.  

I can't add much/any, but think some light exercise, e.g., walking for an hour would be exercise without putting undue stress on your cardiovascular.

On a data base issue, when I do a "mouse over" on your handle "Zardarian" you summary profile comes up "female".   You may want to check the details of your member profile and correct.

[Zardarian]

Thank you so much for your detailed response.

P.S. It is amazing that even when we're sure that what we have is anxiety, we still can not control it just by positive thinking.

[SassyLassie]

Your symptoms point a lot toward anxiety. I, too, have bad anxiety, and I will get hot flash feeling that starts at my feet and works its way up to your face, it is horrendous, I liken it to if you where on a plane and the pilot said to get ready for an emergency landing. I get the palps, fast heart rate, light headedness, and elevated blood pressure, usually mine is low, but, let me get anxious and up it goes. Like I said, all your symptoms point to anxiety.

However, you know there has to be a however, :) I would still get checked by your doctor to rule out heart abnormalities, especially due to the chest pain. Yes, the chest pain can be anxiety related, but, it is best to get checked to make sure.

Yes, exercise is great for working out anxiety as it helps to get rid of the extra adrenalin and fight or flight response, but, you are correct to wait to do strenuous workouts until you get things checked out with the doctor first.

Like I said, to me, this is probably anxiety. There are two books by Dr. Claire Weekes, one is called "hope and help for your nerves" and the other is " Peace from nervous suffering" Both are easy reading and she describes all of our symptoms so perfectly and she writes like she was sitting with you talking. You can get her books from amazon I believe.

Hope this has helped. MedHelp also has an anxiety forum, I am member but have not posted there yet, you might want to check that one out as well.