Arrhythmia and d-dimer

Hi Everyone,

    I am a 36 y.o. female in good health and I exercise 2 to 3 times a week.  For a while I have been feeling palpitations in my chest and shortness of breath.  I went to the ER about a year ago with extreme chest pain, but the only thing they found was an elevated d-dimer (close to 800).  They did scans on my chest, but didn't find a clot.  EKG was normal.  About 6 months ago my d-dimer was checked again and was close to 500.  Both times the lab report said the levels were high.  

  I recently saw a cardiologist and he has me on a 30 day event monitor.  I am still feeling palpitations and shortness of breath, but the monitor is not catching it.  Any ideas why not?  I know it is working because it kept going off at the gym - every time my HR went past 150 bpm.  I have also pushed the record button on the monitor and transmitted.  My blood pressure monitor also has a heart rate monitor on it.  That has showed an irregular beat, but the event monitor is still not picking it up.  Sometimes I just draw a deep, sharp breath at random times.  Usually sitting down - it comes and goes within a couple of second.  Could this also be a heart issue or more likely a lung problem?

  I am very new to the cardiac forum and not sure if this is anything to worry about.  I am wondering if the elevated d-dimers are connected?

Lisa

[yarrow]

Well, obviously the people at the ER were looking for a clot somewhere, but although your d-dimer level was slightly elevated, it wasn't red-hot, and since nothing showed up on chest scans and the d-dimer level is falling as well, you probably are in the clear in that department.  

Elevated d-dimer levels can be caused by a lot of things, even a recent infection.  Take a look at this link, which I'm going to have to put in a form that medhelp will not censor. Instead of copying and pasting the URL, just do the first four words as the standard one word address with a period before the 'com':  doctors lounge *******/hematology/forums/backup/topic-12996.html

As to the irregular beats that the monitor isn't catching, you should call your doc about that.  If the machine is malfunctioning, what good does it do to wear it?  Another possibility is anxiety coupled with a hypersensitivity to normal body sensations.  A lot of us at this forum suffer from that, and it sounds as though you might also have a touch of it.

Breathing irregularities, including the impulse to take sharp, deep breaths, are often related to anxiety and panic.

[yarrow]

Ooooh, the medhelp censor is very clever and has figured out that the word dot followed by the word com signals a link to a forbidden thing.  So here's another approach to getting to the deep, dark, secret link:

Just type this into your google search box and the doctor's lounge commentary should be the first thing on the page that comes up:

hematology/forums/backup/topic-12996.html