8 Year Old Girl - Fast Heartbeat,Palpitations

[Dimba]

Hello,
I have a girl of 8 years old who is very healthy and fit but is experiencing the follwoing symptoms since 10 days!
- Fast heart beats
- pain in the chest ( above heart area) - can't even touch the surfacce!
- little breathlessness
- burning sensation in the stomach

However, she has undergone all major tests:
ECG - Normal
2D Echo - Normal
Complete Blood Picture - Normal
Endoscopy (upper GI )- Normal
Thyorid ( T3, TSH etc) - Normal

She gets these symptoms every day and especially in night. she complains and is having worse days to cope up with...

Does anybody in this forum / Docs can help me to understand this and manage this better? Thanks in advance.

[grendslori]

Try and understand that as strange as it may seem, your daughter is probably perfectly normal. Chest pains in children is usually muscle related and not heart related. The only things that would be heart related are few and far between and are serious forms of heart disease that would have easily been picked up by the murmurs they cause, the EKG and surely the 2D Echo. Acknowledge the way she feels, without pampering her; she may be playing a bit on your motherly sympathiies as many children do in this kind of situation. One thought that does come to mind is: is she taking any daily medicines that can cause bleding into the stomach. Her red blood count would be low if that were the case, however, it might be normal in the beginning of a small bleed.  

[grendslori]

I forgot to ask: How fast does her heart beat go? Also, it is important to know if the heart beat starts and stops on a dime as opposed to gradually increasing and decreasing in rate. As far as the chest pain goes with that happening; small children refer to palpitations as chest pain. The pounding of the heart beat they feel, they don't know how to describe it so they call it pain.

[Dimba]

Thanks a lot for your response!!
Her pulse is around 84. Pulse is normal but she complains that her heart is racing faster and when i place my hand onher heart region, i too can feel it! Mostly she says that her chest region is hurting and doesn't even let us touch it!
And she is not taking any medicines. Her RBC too is perfect ( 4.8 mil ) from the Complete Blood Picture report.

And as you said it culd be muscle pain - any idea on how isit generally treated.

For the last 3 nights i had to rush her to emergency...and she would then become normal and Docs would say she is alright and then we come back home. I wish she is really normal!

[grendslori]

One thing you need to do is to learn how to take a pulse. It is located on the thumb side of the wrist. take her pulse for a full minute when this is happening. It will tell you if the faster rates stops on a dime. It will also tell you if there is any irregularity to the heartbeat. Muscle pain is generally treated with things like Tylenol for children. As I said before, you are probably okay. Another thought would be to see her pediatrician and ask about having a 24 or 48 Holter Monitor testing done. She could also have an Event Monitor put on for a 30 day period and you could press the button anytime she has a complaint. If she IS having an arrhythmia problem, you are more apt to catch it with those types of testing. Follow you mother's instinct, God gave that to you to help you protect your little one. You KNOW her better than any doctor on the planet.