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Avatar universal

Sneeze, cough, tachycardia

3 years ago I had a horrible spell of my heart acting crazy.  6 trips to the ER, I hospital admission and 3 bouts of afib.  I had been taking atenolol prior to this because of a couple of SVT episodes that had to be chemically converted.  After the afib I was put on sotolol which caused new and different palpitations, so then I was put on bystolic which did well.  So I've been plugging along with nothing more than my usual pvcs and pacs and pretty much resumed normal life.  For the last few months I have been having pretty frequent (about once a week) episodes of tachycardia for just a very short time...like a few seconds, just enough to scare me.  So I gave myself a speech and I'm scheduled to see my EP anyway in a couple of months so I figured I would mention this to him when I see him, otherwise, I was going to try to stop worrying about it.  Well, last night while eating dinner I got choked by a piece of rice.  I started coughing and for some reason it triggered sneezing.  My heart took off to the races.  Tried valsava and it didn't stop it.   I felt a couple of really hard irregular thumps like I did with afib but for the most part my heart was fast but regular.  I went and just sat down and in about 5 minutes or so I was back to normal.   As a side to all this I was almost an hour late taking my bystolic and had just taken it about 10 minutes before this happened.  I take it once a day.  I know that this is probably nothing to freak out about but I'm having a really hard time not doing it.  When my husband went to work I got a little weird thinking about being myself.  Can't do this to myself again, got to stop.  But anyway, guess my question is...has anybody had a sneeze or cough cause tachycardia?  It seems like coughing particularly should slow it down.  I had a similar thing happen a couple of years ago when I threw up...triggered tachycardia.  What could cause that?  I sneeze all the time because of allergies and have never had this happen before.
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1807132 tn?1318743597
I can definitely see coughing and sneezing triggering and/or stopping my type of svt which was avnrt.  A pac or pvc in just the right timing of the heart beat could trigger it so coughing and sneezing is a similar thing in it disrupts the heart and as such may give your svt a chance to jump in or help it to stop.  I am not certain how afib starts and stops but starting and stopping on a heart beat like yours did sounds a lot like an accessory pathway svt which is a lot easier to fix than afib.  I would definitely mention this to the EP.  If you have an underlying accessory pathway svt that can be easily cleared up it may help your afib issue and people have been known to have multiple arrhythmias.  I obviously have no way of knowing which type of svt you have but I would question the EP if this could mean that your svt is an easier one to fix.  Well good luck and do let us know how it goes.
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Avatar universal
Bet you didn't do that anymore!  Funny story!
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1423357 tn?1511085442
Coughing, sneezing.... even a (how do I say) stiffled burp, you know the ones you try to keep down can cause a brief but abrupt change in your internal pressure, and sometimes this is all that's needed to commence an SVT episode.  I use to be able to stop SVT that was just starting with a short cough.  Here's a funny one:  My son is famous for his "gas", and can fart like a Howitzer.  One night when we were hanging out together, I decided to see his last blast, and raise him one.  I let one rip, but the sudden strain started SVT.  I didn't know whether to laugh or be frightened a little.  That was the last competition I had with him!
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1807132 tn?1318743597
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