Strong heart beat.. serious?

[JohnOrSky]

Hi,

I'm a 19 year old male and I had my first panic attack a few years ago and ever since then when I go to the doctor my blood pressure has been high (170+/80+), but when I test it at home with a machine i borrowed it is around 145/76.. I do have fairly high anxiety... I've had two EKG's and they both came back just fine.. I once went to my family doctor for chest pain and the nurse found my blood pressure to be 193/93... so I was driven to the Emergency Room and they ran many tests including a protine in the urine test, and I had a chest X-Ray.. Everything came back just fine, and before I left they gave me 1Mg of Xanax and my Blood Pressure dropped to 135/65.. The family doctor told me to take effexor 150mg, but that doesn't seem to be doing anything... over the past year every few months or so lymph nodes under each of my arms or groin will swell some, I mentioned this to the family doctor and he says it's probably related to anxiety..

That's some background info on me... What I am wondering is every now and then my heart will feel as if it is Pounding Really hard..and I can actually hear it pumping... Is it bad for one's heart to beat that hard? If it isn't anything serious I wont worry about it, but if it is really bad for my heart to beat that hard then I'll ask my doctor for a prescription refill of xanax.. I don't like to take xanax because I'm a programmer and I can't think well after I have taken some.

Thanks

[M4Y0U]

If your heart is okay and you don't have any medical condition i would sugest physical activties ( subscription to a gym and some cardio work out ) and also a healthy diet. An inactive person will have a much more rapid heart beat at rest than a physically fit person. Actually doing physical activities can save your life in a way it will make your heart healthier which is a good thing since you concern about it. But keep a close monitoring if you engage intense cardio work.

Also doing physical activities will make your body produces a lot of hormones that are essential for a healthy well being. I won't tell you all the hormones involved and what they do since it would be too long but you can google it and see by yourself the benefits and also phy ed will reduce your anxiety considerably.

Physical Activity
Healthy Diet
Good Sleep Patern

Hope this helps
Best regards,
M4

[cj29]

I am sorry that you are having a difficult time with this right now. My initial source of anxiety came from concerns about my heart and I had to go through multiple tests as well that all confirmed that I was healthy and strong.  Anxiety can be very powerful...my bp is just like yours at the docs office and believe it or not my EKGs actually state I have a problem, which of course threw me for a loop originally.  (I actually just have a strong heart because I have ran long distances for over 15 years, so it turned out to be a good thing:)).  I also can feel my beats, see my pulses in my neck and stomach, and can even feel myself 'rock' with it once in awhile.  All of this is actually perfectly normal for me.  So, I would definitely trust my doctors and work on your anxiety...do you have access to a therapist to talk about it?  For me, learning about it really helped me confront it...keep us posted!