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Suggest Treatment For Fast Heartbeat And Anxiety
Hi, I m a 19 year old fit young lady. I m 175 cm tall and I weigh 68 just to give you an idea. Whilr laying in bed last night I experienced over an hour of my heart beating at 150bp, it was very uncomfortable and was making me shake and shiver, it happened just last week and a couple of other times this year too. I will add that I have anxiety, however it was not caused by me panicking. Should I be concerned?
Wed, 4 Nov 2015
Hello. Welcome to HCM and thank you for your question. I understand your concern.
Well, judging from your young age and your history of anxiety disorder and/or panic attacks, maybe we can depict a scenario of what happened. I believe you when you say that this was not a panic attack. However, I think you had a "skipped heart beat", which tends to happen to everyone while lying down, because a change of within ribcage pressures, and this triggered a maybe not typical panic attack, where you were asking yourself constantly "what is wrong with me?" "is something terrible going to happen to me?" etc. A "skipped heart beat" or an extrasystole, can happen to anybody performing physical activity or undergoing to a lot of psychological stress, even when there are changes in the within ribcage pressures. These are benign phenomena, which can be accompanied with a sense of "heart jumping out" and breathlessness. The anxiety that followed, was accompanied, as all types of anxieties, with a spike of adrenalin levels in the system, which causes fast heart rate (up to 200 beats per minute, sometimes) and rise in the blood pressure. Again, judging from your young age, I would recommend a simple EKG, which would depict anything wrong, if there is, although my index of suspicion is really low. I would, however, recommend you to consult a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist, and discuss regarding a possibility to be started on anti-anxiety medicine, with the proper dosage and frequency of taking.
I hope I was helpful with my answer. Take care.
Kind regards,
Dr. Meriton
Well, judging from your young age and your history of anxiety disorder and/or panic attacks, maybe we can depict a scenario of what happened. I believe you when you say that this was not a panic attack. However, I think you had a "skipped heart beat", which tends to happen to everyone while lying down, because a change of within ribcage pressures, and this triggered a maybe not typical panic attack, where you were asking yourself constantly "what is wrong with me?" "is something terrible going to happen to me?" etc. A "skipped heart beat" or an extrasystole, can happen to anybody performing physical activity or undergoing to a lot of psychological stress, even when there are changes in the within ribcage pressures. These are benign phenomena, which can be accompanied with a sense of "heart jumping out" and breathlessness. The anxiety that followed, was accompanied, as all types of anxieties, with a spike of adrenalin levels in the system, which causes fast heart rate (up to 200 beats per minute, sometimes) and rise in the blood pressure. Again, judging from your young age, I would recommend a simple EKG, which would depict anything wrong, if there is, although my index of suspicion is really low. I would, however, recommend you to consult a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist, and discuss regarding a possibility to be started on anti-anxiety medicine, with the proper dosage and frequency of taking.
I hope I was helpful with my answer. Take care.
Kind regards,
Dr. Meriton
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