Huge Fluctuation on Pulse Rate (Heart Beat), Low SPO2 (oxygen), anxiety

[suddub123]

Hello everyone. Thank you in advance. I am writing some issues of my friend. Please go through all of this.

"I have been suffering from anxiety and panic issues.
Recently, I have been experiencing huge fluctuation in my heart rate/Pulse rate for a few months. It goes to very low (eg 32) and after sometimes it can go to very high (eg. 130), ESPECIALLY WHEN I AM ALONE. Mostly I experience these in the second half of the day, say after 2-3 pm, and most occurrences are during the evening or night. I kind of feel It myself. When the pulse rate goes very LOW, I can feel heaviness in my heart area, while I can feel heart beating myself when the PR goes high.

Further, when I am feeling scared/anxious, my SPO2 also goes below 90 , even up to 80. I am not sure, if the anxiety is leading the SPO2 to drop like that or it is the other way around? But I think its the anxiety which leads to dropping of my SPO2.

Are all there interlinked? Anxiety/Heart Rate/SPO2 ??

So, i fear of beaig alone as well, as i might faint or something like that. I fear of walking the stairs as well because of this.

I had had depression for some years in the past. I was somehow past it, but I fear it might have relapsed again, as I have many stresses in my life, mostly about my future, which I cant prevent to think about. This is troubling me in my daily life very much and I cant do my regular stuffs also, as I am always in fear and stress.

Pleaes help."

[specialmom]

Truth, monitoring yourself like this is part of the health anxiety. The normal course of therapy for health anxiety is to first get a full physical. Talk about your symptoms. You can share what is happening and they can run whatever tests they need to rule out heart, lung or other issues. Once they do, and I have no doubt they will, this can then be addressed as an anxiety problem. Then, you know what the best way to counter it is? Stop monitoring like this. Stop asking for reassurance. Use tested coping strategies to manage your discomfort from feeling like something is wrong with your health. Address anxiety through 1. therapy that includes CBT an DBT to address both distorted thinking and coping strategies. 2. therapy that is related to the way they treat thought based ocd which is exposure response therapy. Meaning leaning into it and doing nothing about it. Feel all the discomfort without trying to solve it. This desensitizes you from it and is the gold standard for treating intrusive thoughts. And 3. medication. Necessary for so many. If you've had trouble finding the right one, ask for a Genesite test which looks at some genetics and helps direct people toward the best medication. Know that all medication is initially trial and error and takes patience. You have to find the right med and the right dose. At first, there may be start up side effects. Unless severe like you can't function at all, stick with it as these transient side effects go away.

Since the friend is worried about relapses in mental health and actually describe a phenomena that occurs with anxiety (especially heart rate as we have a stress response that can cause this through release of stress hormones, activating our parasympathetic nervous system), they need to work hard on this no matter what from a mental health perspective.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21677-heart-palpitations-and-anxiety

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326831