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What Causes Heart Rate Excessively High?
hi! I'm a 19 year old white female. 5' 6", 135 lbs. I'm a D1 athlete and have always been very fit. After having mono this past fall, however, my heart rate is excessively high with fairly minimal exertion. (ex. For an easy hour jog I used to be under 140 bpm and now I rarely can stay under 170...sometimes even spiking up to 190+ and so I've pretty much avoided high intensity exercise like intervals and race pace efforts.) My resting heart rate is a little bit higher (65 as opposed to 56 before having mono.. but still not too bad. Though, if I'm not lying down for ex, at the doctors, my resting heart rate is around 80) I had an echo and an ekg, both of which turned up normal. My primary care doctor also did some blood tests for anemia, thyroid, amongst others which came back normal. I took 2 months off from training completely after finding out that I had mono and then tried to slowly ease back in. It's now been 8 months (so I'm sure it's not a matter of de conditioning) and I'm still struggling to keep my heart rate low during easy exercise. Should I get a second opinion? Maybe do a stress echo? generally, should I be concerned?? This issue is really hindering my training and goals as a competitive athlete. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.
Mon, 8 May 2017
Hello!
Welcome on HCM!
I passed carefully through your concern and would like to explain that as your already performed cardiac tests have resulted normal, there is nothing to worry about. I don't believe you will need a stress echo, as it is not going to provide any additional helpful information.
You don't have anemia, any thyroid dysfunctions, no any structural cardiac disorders.
Your increased heart rate levels (though they seem to be within normal physiological ranges) seem to be an expression of a shifted settings of heart rate interaction during your everyday physical activities.
Mono infection is shown to adversely affect vegetative nervous system mediated responses, leading to several cardiovascular findings like orthostatic hypotension, POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, etc.).
It seems that the new heart rate settings doesn't interfere with your daily physical activity and is not going to adversely interfere with your competitive programs.
What I would recommend you is a discussion with your attending cardiologist to see the opportunity of performing some additional tests like:
- tilt test,
- Holter monitoring
which will provide beneficial information in this regard.
Hope to have been helpful to you!
Kind regards,
Dr. Iliri
Welcome on HCM!
I passed carefully through your concern and would like to explain that as your already performed cardiac tests have resulted normal, there is nothing to worry about. I don't believe you will need a stress echo, as it is not going to provide any additional helpful information.
You don't have anemia, any thyroid dysfunctions, no any structural cardiac disorders.
Your increased heart rate levels (though they seem to be within normal physiological ranges) seem to be an expression of a shifted settings of heart rate interaction during your everyday physical activities.
Mono infection is shown to adversely affect vegetative nervous system mediated responses, leading to several cardiovascular findings like orthostatic hypotension, POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, etc.).
It seems that the new heart rate settings doesn't interfere with your daily physical activity and is not going to adversely interfere with your competitive programs.
What I would recommend you is a discussion with your attending cardiologist to see the opportunity of performing some additional tests like:
- tilt test,
- Holter monitoring
which will provide beneficial information in this regard.
Hope to have been helpful to you!
Kind regards,
Dr. Iliri
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