what's wrong with me?

[lolsquirrel]

hey,


long story short, i had to go through a medical check up & the doc said that my heart rate at rest is way too high (140 bpm).

it jumps up whenever i go to a doc, but what if my day-to-day rest heart rate is pretty high as well? what's wrong with me? any way to find out?


any advice appreciated!

ps. i'm a 19 year old male, not overweight. (so we can rule obesity out)


cheers guys!

[LivingInHope]

You're welcome!  Yeah, some other products that have it are Barq's root beer, mountain dew, non-decaffeinated colas and tea (non-herbal), mellow yellow, dr. pepper & more.  You may want to get a holtor monitor versus a short EKG for the doctor to get a better picture of what your heart is doing and how often it's doing it!

[lolsquirrel]

Thanks for replying, infowillhelp & SurgiMenopause! :)


And to answer some of your questions, I'm not taking any meds, I don't drink coffee and rarely eat any chocolate so I doubt I'm taking in too much caffeine, but who knows, other products have it as well.

I will probably start off by getting my thyroid checked and get an EKG so hopefully by then I'll know what's wrong. More spending, yay.. LOL. :P


Anyway.. Have a great week guys!

[LivingInHope]

I agree you should get your thyroid checked to make sure it's not hyper-functioning, which can cause fast heart rate.  Also, be sure you aren't taking in a lot of caffeine (including through chocolate) or certain meds that can potentially speed up your heart rate.  

If you have corresponding spikes in blood pressure, along with the rapid heart rate, I recommend you get a rare tumor ruled out, usually found on an adrenal gland, called a pheochromoctyoma.  It emits high levels of catecholamines and can cause rapid heart rate and spikes in blood pressure.  The best test out there, according to research I've done on the computer, for ruling this out is the fasting plasma free metanephrines blood test.  It tests the inactive metabolites of your catecholamines, epinephrine and norepinephrine (also called adrenaline and noradrenaline).  You'll want to do it when your symptoms have been particularly bad, and when you haven't been taking tylenol for 72 hours (tylenol can interfere with assaying the levels, I believe).  This type of tumor can potentially have silent periods, where catecholamines would be at normal levels.

Also, you'll want to get your iron and ferritin (especially ferritin, which are your iron stores) levels tested, as low iron levels can cause tachycardia.  Even with a normal CBC, with normal hemoglobin, hematocrit and red blood cell counts, low iron can increase heart rate (did it to me with normal CBC).

You will want to find out what type of tachycardia you have- for example -is it sinus tachycardia or supraventricular tachycardia?  If no physical cause for a sinus tachycardia can be found, they might tell you you have "IST" or inappropriate sinus tachycardia.  This is a form of dysfunction of your autonomic nervous system and if they tell you this is what you have, you may want to come check out medhelp's forum for dysautonomia!  They may try medication for this problem to slow your heart rate.

  If you are having SVT, they may put you on medication.  If conservative methods, like adjusting with no caffeine, taking medicine, etc., don't work, they may suggest an ablation, performed by an electrophysiologist, to try to get your heart to go back to a normal sinus rhythm.

[infowillhelp]

could be a thyriod problem  or you could have a fast heart rate  i would get a ekg  to see if  the health of your heart if everything comes out normal  you might have to be put on medicaiton to slow it down to a normal resting prate normal is 60-100