What is it, palps, atrial fib????

[kellebelle]

I am a 43 year old female who is in good health.Since October I have been dealing with palps, they drive me crazy. I have had a holter, echocardiogram and tests came back normal other than pac's, sinus tach.The past couple of weeks have been horrible I will begin my episodes around 4:30 pm and they will last until bedtime. When they hit they will come every 2-3 minutes feels like my heart is jumping out of my chest very distrubing.

I saw my doctor on Monday and he drew blood again and ordered an event monitor. I wore it Friday events started at 5pm and I filled the monitor up by 9pm. I will be able to call it in Monday at 9am. I currently take a beta blocker, and also meds for panic attacks.My dad has atrial fib and that always concerns me that I am heading in that direction.I also have very low blood pressure 80/55.I also have Hashimoto's thyroiditis but the endo doc does not feel my numbers are abnormal, so I am not on thyroid medication.
Questions???  
Do you think it is atrial fib??? My heart rate does speed up a bit when these hit, but not much. Just seems to jump every few
minutes or so.

Would my low blood pressure cause the palps, I take 25 to 50 mg of atenlol per day. Only take 50 if they really get bad.

Is it anxiety or my heart?? With my dad's history I just wonder.
This is something new that I have never experienced in my years with panic disorder.

What tests do I need but haven't had????

I appreciate your time! Would love to hear from others who are bothered by these darn things.

Kelly

[Rocko1]

Hi there! Well I too had the problem of increasing pvc's after meals. However in my case it was only.... after the evening meal. At the time back in February, I had borderline high blood pressure. It was app 145/95. Well I got really scared due to the palps and immediately began eating correctly and cut out ALL of my wine. 2 to 3 or 4 glasses an evening. Then in March i began taking 1000 mg of omega 3 and 250 mg of Mag oxide a day. Well interestingly my blood pressure went down to 120 over 80(approximately) and my pvc's in the evening drastically(not totally): subsided. I hardly ever have one now in the evening but I do notice maybe on good days 2 or 3 and bad days maybe 10 or so. Hopefully they will continue to subside to nothing. I dont know if it was loweting bp, the fish oil and mag or both but something has dropped them to this level now from about 100 to 200 in the evening. Incedentaly, I had holter testing and an echo which both came back "normal". thnx, Rocky

[Lamar1]

Guys, do you think palpitations could be triggered by a gastric cause even without digestion problems? My digestion is great but I do notice I often have tach and more PVCs after eating...

Thanks so much in advance for any feedback

[Mieke]

Hi everyone

Just wondering if anyone can tell me what it means when you can hear your heartbeat in your ears?  I suffer with frequent PVC's and MVP with reg (mild) and there are times when my heartbeat is pounding in my ears, I don't need to take my pulse I can count it out just by hearing it!  Does it mean High blood pressure?  Haven't had mine checked for a while but it is usually normal.

[Dr. Erik]

Glad to hear that you have made some progress in assessing what is going on. I think that controlling your mild hypertension will go a long way toward suppressing your ectopy. Pluto takes a combination of two Hypertension drugs. I can't remeber the two but it may be worth a try as he is controling his ectopy through this combination. One of the drugs may even have ant-arrhythmic properties. Good luck and please keep us all posted.

Erik

[drottdee]

mike,I too have pvcs and gastro troubles with anxiety. I learned from here that I was having gastro problems,actually it was eric that suggested that i have a GI workup. Anyhow i take nexium for the gerd,but I cannot take any beta blockers due to low normal bp and heartrate.My pressure was so low on beta blockers that I was near passing out a work. I have been taken off all meds including celexa for the anxiety. And GUESS WHAT, I feel like a new woman,the pvs are annoying and I still take nexium but i am finally getting back to my regular activities.which includes soccer or football as you may call it.I attribute the vigourous exercise to helping me to cope,another thing that I learned from this forum. so lets all cheer for bechem and england in the euro cup and relax and hope that all is well.

cheers back at ya

[pandora9048]

hi,
Xanax is good for panic and anxiety, but really does nothing for palpitations.  I read that on a website.  Don't remember where.
Pan