Can someone explain (or relate to) my fast heart rate in a young person?

[ruben_3301]

I've been experiencing a myriad of symptoms lately and I feel like this is taking my happiness away from me. I am very young so that means every time I go to the doctor, they do an EKG as well as an echocardiogram and tell me I have anxiety. I do suffer from anxiety but only after all this started happening. It got to a point where I was not getting a clear answer for my symptoms and I developed an anxiety disorder because I just don't know what's going on in my body.

It all started with skipped beats. I went to a cardiologist and he told me it was normal. I can live with that. A few months later I started having bulging veins in my hands that are painful. They go away if I lift my arm but that is not normal and the burning sensation is not fun either. I went to my doctor again just to be told that I should drink more water and not think about it. More months go by and my heart is suddenly raising to 190+ beats per minute while going up the stairs or just doing a warmup. Like I said before, I have an anxiety issue due to all this and I do experience panic attacks often that are caused by fear of having more episodes of painful and burning arm veins as well as my crazy fast heart rate triggered by everything. During a moment of panic, my heart rate has been over 200 beats per minute (counted by the school nurse) so you can imagine how distressing and debilitating that is. That is just not normal for my age. I occasionally have chest pains, red face, red burning ears, and headache just by walking up the stairs and sometimes while reading a book or trying to go to sleep. The fast heart rate only happens when exercising and panic, never randomly. The problem is that even something like jogging for 5 minutes can raise my heart rate to 190+ bpm, and panic sometimes over 200+. When I'm going through a panic attack and I go somewhere where I know I'm safe, I can feel and measure my heart rate going down back to 70-80bpm in like 5 to 10 minutes. This means that the fast heart rate is triggered by external things. Something normal tells my heart to beat fast but whatever makes my heart beat, gets out of hand and my heart beats way too much. It's like an overreaction.

I didn't join the swim team (I love swimming) because of this. I had a major panic attack because my heart rate went too high and I was having tons of skipped beats (I thought I was dying). I'm a 17 year old, skinny guy who was very healthy before all of this started happening to me. I drink plenty of water and I eat fairly well (I even removed caffeine from my "diet"). The only thing is that I don't exercise often. I walk like 3 blocks every day for school and the occasional walk in the mall like once a month.

I just want a clear answer to this. I've had EKG's, echocardiograms, a 48 hours Holter Monitor, and thyroid tests, and all of those tests keep coming back normal. I feel like I'm too young to be worrying about this but I am having physical symptoms of something I can see and feel. I need an explanation for my fast heart rate. It's keeping me from doing things that I really want to do like joining a sport.

[2210485]

Many potential causes. I wpuld recommend if the holter is normal that you try either a holter of a longer duration, such as a 2 week holter, or an event monitor.

That would be the only conclusive way to confirm whether this is pathological (a disease process) or physiological (due to an abnormal variation of normal mechanisms, such as an exhaggerated response to emotions or exercise)