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Sudden onset of arhythmia and bradycardia

I am a healthy 32 year old female. I have had a history of mysterious chest and rib pains that started about 5 years ago, but they are fairly infrequent, and only cause minor discomfort. There is a history of heart disease in my family.
Last Friday I suddenly felt as if my heart skipped a beat, and then I became very lightheaded, weak,shaky, and a bit nauseous. After sitting down for about 30 minutes I felt better. A few hours later, the same thing happened again, but this time it felt worse. Again, it lasted about 30 minutes. This was 6 nights ago and I have been feeling ill ever since. On Monday, I was put on a medication to regulate my heart beat, but my symptoms haven't changed. During the day I feel weak, and I often feel my heart skip. At night, I have been having about 2-5 of the episodes where I become extremely light headed and I get weak and start to shake all over. They last 10-30 min each. When the "attacks" are finished, I have a burning sensation in my chest that radiates down my left arm. I am also getting occasional chest and rib pains.
Last night I had the worse "attack" yet, where I felt as if my heart stopped for a few seconds. I went to the ER and was told that I have arrhythmia and bradycardia, but that everything else was normal. They kept me there all night to observe me. The question of whether this may be stress related came up, but I personally don't think so. I am completely rational and calm during the episodes, not panicky at all despite the fact that they are quite scary.  Anyway, over the next few weeks, I will have a bunch of appointments to see the cardiologist.
I am very alarmed by the simple fact that I went from feeling like a healthy young woman to all of the sudden feeling sick all of the time. I am also a little in the dark, because I am living in a foreign country where my modest language skills don't yet cover medical terms. Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated. Thank-you for your time!

Sincerely,
Danijay
2 Responses
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230125 tn?1193365857
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Unless they saw what is causing your symptoms on the monitor in the ER, you need to where a heart monitor and have it on during one of these episodes.  This could be anythings from short runs of arrhythmias (premature beats from the atrium or ventricle, short runs of beats from the atrium or ventricle) or it could be episodes where your heart pauses, blood pressure drops or both (vasovagal syncope or neurocardiogenic syncope).

I doubt this is related to chest pain or rib pain -- episodes like that in young people are usually not related to the heart.

I hope this helps.
Helpful - 1
Avatar universal
Thank-you for your reply, Dr. McWilliams. I am indeed scheduled to wear the holter monitor, so hopefully they will figure something out from that. Thanks for the help!
Helpful - 0

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