heart BPM post CABG

July 9th, 2007, had a triple bypass, (80% blockage of left main); currently, resting hrt is 65 and BP is 120/70ish; 40 year type 1 diabetic with exceptioanl control; on 25mg of metoporlol (12/5 twice a day) and aspirin; hike 3-5 miles a day on a hill rail with ski ooles, etc....my problem is a racing heart rate that happens only at night, where the hrt gets to 110-120 BPM; I went to the emergency with it and my BP was 128/72!! no one can tell me what's going on...huge waiting list to see my cardio (the beauty of publicly fnded health care in Canada!!) I also have some minor aching type pain around the left mammary, which i attribute to the harvesting of the artery in that location...my ekg was normal each time I had the racing heart incident...can anyone shed some light on this? thanks

[Douglas Bogart, MD]

It is possible you are having paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.  You need to have an ECG at the time of the heart racing not after.  Sometimes an event monitor is the only way to catch the abnormality.

[Coykendall]

...or is it all in my head and I'm the cause of these physical manifestations?

The events are over in a half hour or so, they come on without warning and the last two times, the BPM never got higher than 100 BPM; blood pressure was in the normal range and by the time EKG was completed, the BMP had dropped to 93 BPM...can bypass surgery induce such incidents (4months post surgery) and if so, will things normalize on their own?