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Is it possible to provoke PACs/tachycardia by thinking/worrying about them?????

Does anyone think it's possible to provoke PACs just by thinking aobut them?  Because I'm starting to think that it is!  I have always hated when someone dismisses a physical problem by saying it's caused by anxiety, or it's psychosomatic, or whatever, but I'm truly starting to believe that sometimes I bring the PACs on myself!!  Has anyone else ever felt that way??

I get brief runs (2-20 seconds) of either atrial tachycardia or a run of PACs.  PACS have been caught on a monitor, along with "a three beat run of atrial tachycardia" which many say is just another name for a run of PACs. I get these about once every five days or so.   All of this is occurring after an ablation for AVNRT,which I had about 13 weeks ago.  So I'm really agitated about still having tachycardia anyway.

But it seems like when I get them, they come just as I have been thinking/worrying about them, or hoping I don't get them.  For example, I went out of town for just two days but was concerned about getting an "episode" while I was gone.  Well guess what....the only two days I had them that week were the two days I was out of town.  Then the other night I was at a major league baseball game and was concerned that a bad episode might start and I was high up in the upper deck and was worried about how I would get out of there if there was a problem.  I pretty much thought about it for the whole first 7 innings, then had a episode in the 8th inning, when I hadn't had anything for over a week.  And it was the worst episode I have had.....meaning it seemed to race faster and lasted about 20 seconds when they usually last 5-10.  But the whole time my heart was racing, I could feel myself starting to get very scared, like here it is, and what if it doesn't stop....I could feel myself getting that hot, nervous feeling if you know what i mean.  And I'm guessing maybe that's why the episode was worse than usual.

Any thoughts on this??  Do you think it's possible that I am provoking these attacks??  Not that  there isn't a real physical component to it, cause obviously not everyone gets a racing heart just by thinking about it, but I still have to wonder.......

I'm curious to hear if anyone else has experienced this.....

3 Responses
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1425157 tn?1311651679
i swear i bring them on myself at times  by worrying about them,,,or i am finding even a stressful customer at my till at work or a long line is starting to cause enough stress to bring them on...
Helpful - 0
1137980 tn?1281285446
The answer to your question is definately yes...anxiety can cause a flare of of PAC'a because like ireneo said you are causing a surge of adrenaline to push thru your heart when you become full of anxiety and stress and because it forces your heart to not beat in a normal fashion causing the early contractions of the heart which are electrical based.  I loved Ireneo;s answer tho when stated "So i just don't think about him" now that was funny.  You have to learn to calm yourself down here Annie and tell yourself that in 5 minutes or 10 minutes they will be gone..i would project myself a little further ahead and try to distract myself...good luck
Helpful - 0
187666 tn?1331173345
I know my heart will skip a bit if I think about having to go see my cardio. Perhaps there's a bit of an adrenalin surge from the stress and my heart hiccups a few times. So I just don't think about him.  :-)
Helpful - 0
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