Im Really Scared Theres Somthing Wrong With My Heart

[nikigrl8883]

since ive been sick ive had an echocardiogram ekgs a 24 hr holter and a treadmill stress test but i swear there misisng somthing my heart is either too low ot too high i cant live a normal life at all i get chest pains off and on not too bad of pain but enough/ i wake up with my heart racing at night somtimes but that hasnt happened in a few months last night i felt like i fainted in my sleep but i couldnt tell....im really scared....i had a tilt table too and it showed the upright tachardia but none of the othe autonomic tests showed anything wrong......im scared to do anything,,,to have any kind of life....i dont want to start another job if im gonna have to quit from being sick.....and im not convinced there nothing wrong with my heart.....when this ist started there were times i swear my heart was stopping for a sec laying down too! but no tests ever show somthing wierd besides tachy...all these test were done by my primary doctor who is also a cardiologist and he is very nice....but i feel like ill end up dying of a heart attack or somthing....its been 9 months with this now almsot a year ive been sick

[dizzygirl]

sorry that you are dealing with this.. I hope tht you get some answers soon.. to ease your worries...and maybe a better treatmetn plan so that you can start feeling better

oh yea i wanted to add.. i know you mentioned being hooked to monitors and such.. but would your doc be willing to hook you up to a cardio net monitor.. its a really neat monitor that picks up EVERYTHING! and it can be worn for longer stretches...It records events/monitors 24/7.... and it will back track some thing like 1 minute or 30 seconds after you hit the record button...if you have something abnormal that you want to be sure is recorded..

Im going to be hooked up to this is the next few weeks.. and this is my 2nd time using it..I like you have epsiodes of wher my HR drops and i know it drops but it has never happened yet while being a monitor.. so im hoping that this time around there will recording of this.. I wish you luck and hope that your docs willb e willing to work with you on this..

good luck

[Maxine]

nikigrl8883,

A lot of these things happening with your heart are pretty common with POTS/ANS dysfucntion. They can be very scary sometimes. It's best to check with your doctor, and make sure this is related to your POTS.

You can have longer term monitors like dizzy girl mentioned to rule out anything serious.

I had a lot of these weird flip flop beats, feeling of my heart stopping, tachy ect. more often in the beginning when I crashed.

I still get the tachy, but my implantable cardiac loop recorder has shown nothing other then tachycardia, and ectopic beats, single PVCs. Those episodes that happen every once in a while---where I grey out, and it feels like my heart drops into my gut have not happened since I had this loop recorder put in----DANG---FIGURES.

Anyway---the majority of us have all kinds of crazy weird things that happens to our hearts.

Try to relax a little, and talk with your doctor about a longer term event recorder. I know the relaxing part is easier said then done------------I have been there, but the more anxious I got, the more it aggravated my spells.

Sending you a big fat hug---------------

Maxine :0)

[mom4cem]

I would also try to go for a long term monitor. I've done that a few times and it really can help to put your mind at rest once and for all.

[cardiactec]

hey girl,

i'm sorry you are having such a rough time....

reassurance is most important for your overall wellbeing. doctors run diagnostics to both reassure themselves and the patient that either all is okay or something could potentially be wrong. it sounds like you have had a great and thorough workup for any underlying cardiac disease. however, like some have mentioned, wearing a monitor that records your heart rhythm for longer than 24 hours may be needed in order to "catch" something that the doc's are missing. that being said though, a treadmill test is a very "arrhythmia" type provoking/induced test. when the heart is under stress, potential lethal arrhythmia or ectopy can be instigated or induced moreso than if the heart was at rest (no exercise), so if your treadmill did not cause any arrhythmia other than a sinus tachycardia, chances are slim that they would catch something on a monitor you wear for longer than 24 hours. it still IS a good idea to pursue this though because not ALL tachyarryhtmia's are instigated by stress to the heart.

you said, "im scared to do anything,,,to have any kind of life....i dont want to start another job if im gonna have to quit from being sick" -- all i can say to this is to not let fear or illness rule your life.....if you feel you are capable of working, even part time, i'd say go for it and try not to think about what your body may be potentially hindering you from doing. it's not that its "mind over matter", but certainly keeping busy with something can help you to be less drawn to think about how you're feeling.......it wont take the problem away, but finding something that you enjoy that you are physically capable of doing will help you to at least cope and hang your hat on something more than pots or illness being "your life"....

i really hope you start to feel better and find some reassurance in either what is potentially going on that the docs could be missing or come to realize that this is all just POTS and that there isnt anything wrong with your heart....

keep us posted nikigirl and take care.

prayers and best wishes being sent your way.

[sfrnklin]

Niki,

A lot of what you are describing sounded a lot like me with my POTS. None of my cardiac test was abnormal. My stress test was fine, my echo's were fine, My Tilt was just tachycardia, etc. The 24 hr halters (and I wore many) didn't really show anything. And to beat all that, I had to wear several long-term monitors before they started catching stuff (a Cardionet and a King of Hearts monitor). I had flip flopping of the heart that felt like someone had my heart on a wand and was making it turn every which way but loose inside my chest, I made multiple trips to the ER with chest pain that bowed me over (all blood work neg for heart attack each time...they started labeling me as a pain seeker and I am an RN), I felt like my heart would stop and it would wake me up in the nite, I had extreme SOB just climbing my stairs at home, etc.

To make a long story short, they finally caught an arrythmia called Fib/Flutter for a short period of time on the King of Hearts monitor (I converted on my own). Another time at work I went into that arrythmia again and had to be hospitalized a few days and converted again on my own. I was sent to Dr. Grubb because noone in my area would do an EP/ablation on me. It was thought to be too risky since I had POTS (bologny)!!!!!

Dr. Grubb did an EP, ablated that nasty arrythmia along with another one he found I new nothing about and I feel 100% better. I still have POTS of course, but my heart no longer does those weird things and I no longer have CP or SOB as bad. I still have tachy at times which is normal for a POTS patient, but it is Sinus Tachycardia and it is controlled and doesn't even really bother me that bad.

Good luck and ask your doctor for a more long term monitor. They can be a real pain cause you have to wear most of them for a least a month or more, but hopefully something will show.

Susan