I Couldn't Believe This

[gertie]

I finally went to the dr after 9 or 10 days of heart arrythmias. When I walked into the building they had just cleaned the lobby floor. I went into the waiting room & sat down & my heart went into rapid HB. I tapped my chest & it finally slowed down. All the time I was in the waiting area I could feel my heart skipping beats. I was taken into a room the nurse did an EKG & everything was fine. I questioned it & she did another EKG. When the dr came in he said everything is fine. I asked him how can that be. Everytime I take my pulse it's skipping beats & at time I can feel it in my chest. He didn't have an explanation but said my BP was up & he wants me to wear a halter moniter for 24 hrs to be sure I'm not having defib? I think that's what he called it. He didn't want me to have a stroke. He did check my pulse and BP a couple more times but it never missed a beat. This has happened everytime I've gone to be checked over the last few years. Thanks, I just had to tell someone.

[lieze]

I can believe it.

Same thing happens to me.

My heart flips all over the place but my EKG's are all normal.

I have been told all my arrhythmia's even the SVT's are not life threatening.

Just a nuisance that's all.

They are improving since my cardiac ablation and I did have an abnormal pathway in the heart causing my heart rate to be both slowed down and to speed up into the SVT's and on the table during the ablation into afibb.

A guy who just has afibb no POTS has reassured me this is nothing to worry about just have faith.

With the POTS symptoms too though I think it just made it a little bit scarier.

I still get that sensation that used to send me into the SVT's only nothing happens after.

I also just get this thing that goes through me that feels weird. Like a power surge?

It makes me often jerk or move because of the uncomfortable feeling.

But I am fine before and after.

The further I go along from my initial symptoms of POTS the more my heart is quieting down.

I have slowed my activity way down but I am not getting the tachycardia that I was.

I do hope you get peace of mind wearing your holter.

I did notice palps with this upper respiratory illness I have and it could be a coincidence but when I drank that Pocari sweat that contains Magnesium everything seemed to settle right down.

Many of us are lacking Magnesium in our diet (good old veggies from the garden) and it can cause more issues with the heart.

I want to try more of the ion drink-Pocari sweat and see if it doesn't help me to improve both possible the cardiac symptoms which seem to be more uncomfortable than anything to worry about and my anxiety, magnesium is supposed to help with that too.

I have no idea what my levels are.

I hope everything goes well with your holter and you get the peace of mind that you need right now. I guess if they tell us we're okay we need to just believe them-it's been one of the hardest things for me to accept when I have felt so crappy.

lieze

[potsgirl]

It must be very frustrating and scary to have your heart racing like that. I think what they're checking for is atrial fibulation with the Holter Monitor. This is when your heart goes super-fast, up to 300 beats a minute or so. If that was happening to you, they would probably put you on Coumadin to thin your blood and to help prevent this condition, which can lead to stroke and other heart problems. I had it for about a year or so.

Good luck,

Jana

[lieze]

alicia,

There are loads of stories of people on the internet that are experiencing this same thing.

Some even report feeling the sensations as they are doing the EKG and it shows nothing wrong.

It is good to make sure of what it is that you are experiencing and I hope if something is there that your holter picks it up.

lieze

[gertie]

Thanks everyone. I admit it was a little embarrassing.

[lieze]

No reason to be embarrassed. There is no way to know if there is a problem or not unless you get checked out. You are feeling something-I believe you. It's just whether it is what we think it is.

You did the right thing to go and have this investigated.

lieze

[erik]

Not sure if holter is always a short duration thing or not. If so, there are the longer monitoring dealios where you keep the thing on for weeks and "press a button" (remote trigger) to capture things right around the time you experience symptoms (sometimes "phone in" samples too). I would definitely mention that Mg was one of the things that triggered your response, especially since some folks get relief from arrythmias with Mg supplementation. Might be a clue for a bright cardio.

I also wonder about two other things:

a) If something else is out of balance (such as a hormonal thing, thyroid, et. al.), then other "systems" in the body can get very finicky even if they aren't the real source of the trouble. An intermittent heart trouble and extra sensitivities might mean the heart is "on edge" since something totally different is slightly out of range. Then again, living "slightly out of range" is what dysautonomia is all about, isn't it?!?

Are there things that mimic heart sensations that might get involved? I know I get this "lung overpressure" thing that is like a heart/lung interaction but might never show up in electrocardiographic measure. It might be a blood flow irregularity, I don't know. I've heard of such things, particularly with other organs. Can give weird feedback/sensation to heart if blood is diverted unusually or suddenly. There could also be something "spasmodic" somewhere that could either be related or unrelated to heart but cause sensation timed with it. I think some of the heart sensitivities you've described were after eating something, so maybe digestive processes tie in. Sometimes the body "releases something" on demand to digest/absorb/transport/excrete certain things. This might happen pretty quickly in some cases. It also might count as an autonomic response and if something is confused or blurred there, seems like a way that one "legitimate signal & response" can cascade into a "dysregulated" response elsewhere (and the darn "disperse & migrating symptoms" that dysautonomia tends to cause). I wouldn't know anything specific... but then again, top of the line autonomic specialists usually can't state too many specifics either!

c) A bonus/side consideration that stuck in my head after reading that Stromboli MS theory a while back. There was mention of transient blood brain barrier disruption. Things like MSG are not observed to traverse the barrier (general rule is being lipophobic & lacking an explicit transporter)... but what if a condition exists where the BBB isn't behaving as cut-n-dried as science & statistics tell us? That article seemed to imply the possibility. Perhaps other innocuous agents that never touch 99.9% of folks can do so in a select few. This is just a side thought because it has more to do with a "multiple chemical sensitivities" thing, than with something more specific like palpitation.

I get plenty of variation in how my heart feels. One of the more odd ones involves what I'm guessing is a positive inotropic response. When it comes on suddenly it is alarming, feels unnatural, etc. but can actually be a benefit to flow! The odd thing is that I get it at odd times (and rarely). Seems like something that should happen more often, like when exercising. Makes me wonder if my heart is operating in an odd realm so chronically (perhaps making up for a lack of inotropic force with futile chronotropic response, a.k.a. tachycardia), that a rare glimpse of a normal response can seem like a malfunction! After years of dysfunction, a bit or normalcy could be a very foreign sensation.

At the end of all that... perhaps electrophysioligical measure isn't always the whole story either. Echocardiogram, CT, X-ray, and fancy "doppler" techniques might catch something too (not to mention invasive flow studies). Submitting to "provocative tests" like administration of drugs that induce specific heart responses, can be an option too. Things like "long-QT" which "ought to be obvious" on an EKG can also go unmeasured even under strict scrutiny. All tests have false negs & false positives and the most reliable instrument is your personal observation & intuition. Don't let the technology (and doctor ego) dissuade you of that.

[gertie]

Thanks lieze & Erik, I do have MCS that I know is a contributing factor. My problem is, there are no great dr's here & I don't feel like traveling to get to one. I think I'm just tired of fighting all the problems that dys bring.