Hi

Probably been told lots of times already but...

Last night when I went to bed I laid down and started getting mild pounding then I was laying on my right side and it felt weird and I was getting the trembling. all of a sudden, between my breasts above my heart area I suppose and just beneath my breast I got a really intense panic feeling I tried my usual that normally eases it and it didn't work it then turned into a ache and this frightened me, I sat up or whenever I moved it felt as if I couldn't breath properly my lungs felt tight. It lasted for hours until I eventually got myself to sleep.

I did get up and go toilet and was ok still had the feelings and there still there this morning, not as bad or constant.

It's just its different than normal and the ache and intensity of it was horrible I couldn't get to sleep, my heart rhythem was ok just faster.

Yesterday a close friend of my husbands said some horrible things and I immediately defended my husband, and ended up raised voices and my heart feeling as if it's about to pound out of my chest and I ended up in tears.  I'm hoping last nights episode was just a reaction to the days previous events.  I think it's the fact the feeling wouldn't calm and the feeling of not being able to breathe also the ache thats paniced me. Also that it's still here a this morning and more in my neck to today.

Hope everyones feeling ok today, sorry to be a pain I know I've been told and deep down I know it's from yesterday.

Kath x

Morning

Well had a better nights sleep, told myself to stop being silly, still had the feeling, but knew that if I didn't sleep properly then being tired would make it worse.

Still a bit funny this morning but not as bad.

A friend of mine has told me about a clerical vacancy where she works, which sounds good and would take the pressure off my husband, as at the moment he gets up at 5am and does his day job gets home then does his eve job and isn't getting home until 10pm, sometimes we go with him as we'd never see him, but it's not good the children being stuck in the car all that time even though we have a Chrysler people carrier so there not exactly cramped together, but it's still not good for them either.  I suppose as much as I want to start working again, it's a daunting prospect, especially as my youngest is not fully at school so I'd have to sort out child care.  I would like to do it, I've just got to be a bit more confident as deep down I know I could do it and it would make our mainly my husbands life much better, and he deserves that, he'll be ill if he carrys on how he is.

Well thank you for listening (reading) about me going on.

Hope everyone is having a good day

Kath x

Hi Rich,

Thanks for your reply.

I know I have a anxiety disorder and generally over the past year or so have come on loads, but when I get like this it's just so difficult to get out of, it's like your constantly fighting the feelings and thoughts and that makes you tired.

I sympatise with you, it's always a shock to have a phone call early hours hope your son's feeling better now.  I'm like you not so much now but I was, I'd lay there anticipating eptopics and all sorts of weird and wonderful things which just add to the anxiety.  

Anxiety is such a powerful thing, I don't know if you've read any of my other posts but I'm currently on a anxiety management course and before christmas I did a relaxation course.  They show you the anxiety circle and alot of it is triggered by our thoughts, and if you really take notice of what you are saying to yourself sometimes you are actually talking yourself into a episode!

My problem at the moment is I do not like conflict and bad feeling, like I said a so called good friend we've known for years accused my husband of not being reliable and not hard working!!! and of course I know this not to be true and my husband works very hard to provide for us, so ended up getting very upset and angry and now I'm going to be is this state for a week or so.  It's funny isn't it how one episode that can last a few minutes and yes you probably stew on it for a while and cause a weeks worth of anxiety and weird beats all over the place.

I have found it has help me alot to change my diet, no caffine, fizzy alcohol, spicy foods etc... and sitting after meals and having 6 smaller meals rather than 3 large, have helped.

Anxiety is awful, there's not many people that really understand,  My husband as probably is your wife is very understanding, I make him listen to my heart take my pulse, I ring him asking him if he thinks I'm ok. and he just takes it in his stride.  I think he gets frustrated sometimes though because there isn't really anything he can do to help me when I'm having a anxiety attack.

Missed beats are horrible, aren't they?  mild ones not to bad but when you get the big ones, oh I hate them!  But it is reassuring to know that my heart is structurally ok, my cholesterol is normal and my BP is nearly always perfect, all blood tests (and I've had alot) have come back normal (except a potassium one and dehydration one once and that was easily sorted) so perhaps I should listen to that.

I have made myself this way, not straight away but over the course of 15 years give or take I have been and now it's time to face my fears and sort out the issues in the past or come to terms with things in the past to help me sort the anxiety out.  We have talk ourselves and trained our bodies to react this way very gradually over many years, and whilst during those years you may never have had a panic attack or even thought there was a problem, if you look back all those little things have just built up and up!  (well thats how I see it anyway)

I love my chrysler, we've got the grand voyager ltd, and it's lovely.  But we're going to have to sell it to fund work need doing in the house and to pay for a well deserved holiday!  We're probaly get a Renault Grand Espace instead, but prefer the layout on in our voyager though.  Need the Grand for the extra 6in's boot space!! pushchairs and shopping take up lots of room.

How old are your children? if you do not mind me asking!  My eldest boy is 7 then 2 girls aged 5 and 21/2

Hope I haven't rambled on to much.

Kath x

A RESPONSE FOR DICKYBOY.

You have to realize that the body places itself in a different physiological state while asleep and this varies through different stages of the sleep process. Depending upon whether you're startled when awakened, the body immediately goes into the "fight or flight" mode and adrenaline surges to bring the body to a state of preparedness. The symptoms can be especially noticable after you try and lay down a short time later. The heart can be pounding, pressure can be felt around the neck and ears, the mouth may be dry, the hands may tremble and general nervousness is experienced. This can be exacerbated if the physiological changes are focused upon, permitting symptoms to sometimes advance.

These are all normal physiological responses and no concern should be afforded here.

Best regards and Good Health

Hi Kathryn, Hi RLR,

Sorry haven't replied sooner but been a bit busy with work and the usual stuff!  It was really weird reading your post about your husband's friend because back in November we fell out with our closest friends who we've known for over 25 years!  They're even Godparents to all of our children.  The weird thing was that my best pals wife got it into her head that we didn't trust her because we hardly ever let her babysit for us.  Even though we hardly let anyone babysit, only my mum or my wife's mum!  We hardly ever go out anyway and we love spending time with our family.  

But somehow she got this into her head and had a row with my wife, so I phoned her back to ask her why my wife was crying and what was up and she said some really horrible things.  The whole time that I was speaking on the phone to her I was experiencing ectopics virtually ever other beat for nearly an hour.  We haven't spoken to them since!  The first few weeks I could not stop thinking about them and trying to work out what we had done wrong.  I still think about them now and so does my wife and we are sort of shocked but cant understand why they fell out with us.  We don't really see there is any point continuing with the relationship with the feelings she has but it is such a shame and I guess if I am honest it has really upset us both.

I just thought is was ironic that you had some words with your husbands friend and we have had a similar incident and although I still don't think that it has anything to do with my heart, I've got to admit that it must do somehow.  Also as I said in a previous post we have been having a lot of trouble with my mum and my stepdad, he is 84 and becoming incontinent and she wants to leave him!  My wife's dad left her mum last May then came back for three months and left her again in October.  He is still with the woman he left her for who is 41, younger than me!  He is 59 and he has been married to my wife's mum for 37 years!!  What a shock that was.  We are still feeling the effects because her mum can't accept it and wants him back!  So we have been through it a bit and I guess that stress isn't always evident at the time it just bubbles away under the surface and shows itself in allsorts of guises.

By the way I went to the doctors on Thursday and she is writing to the cardiologist for yet another appointment as she doesn't know what else to do!  She's probably fed up with me after reading all the reports that the cardiologist has written in the past.  I've managed to get it through my work insurance again so at least I shouldn't have to wait too long for an appointment and of course I will keep you both and everyone on the site, I guess, posted as to what he says.

Also Kathryn, I have 3 boys and one little girl.  Boys 5, 8, and 10 (11 in Sept) My little girl is going to be 2 on Friday 2nd! and I love the voyager actually cleaned it inside and out for once on Sunday!  Wonder how long that will stay clean inside!!!

RLR, thank you once again for answering my post.  I can see that the adrenaline surges like that in the middle of the night because of the fight or flight mechanism and that is why my heart was racing like mad.  Oddly enough I didn't experience not one irregular beat though?  By the way today I have had the runs of ectopics on three seperate occasions.  Once at 11:30 where I counted at least 8 pvc's with about 3 or 4 normal beats in between each one.  Then at 1:15pm I had about 4 or 5 in between 2 or 3 normal beats, I coughed deliberately and tried the vagul pressure (I think it is called something like that!) where you force at the back of your throat.  Don't know if this helped or not.  Then at 6:30 this evening I had about another 8 irregular beats between normal ones, some bigeminy!  

So I'm fed up right now because since the Friday I've only been having one episode a day of around 3 or 4 runs of beats.  Now it's getting even worse!  Considering I was only ever experiencing these runs every few weeks last year I wonder why it is becoming more frequent?  Could this become so frequent that I am bigeminy or similar runs all day?  Also could this turn into a dangerous rythmn?  Any ideas RLR?  Thank you once again for your reassurance.  Do you think I am right to see my cardiologist yet again?  Also the doc hasn't requested bloods to check thyroid, which I thought she might?

Thanks again for all your help and support.

Best wishes RLR

Take care Kathryn, hope your feeling well.

Rich

It was interesting to read your comments about being upset over incidents. Since I have suffered with health anxiety I find it much harder to get over things - as though my nerves are super sensitive and things that would not have bothered me before play on my mind now. I guess this is all part of the problem - having been told we are okay we should be able to put our health concerns behind us and get on with our lives. We somehow can't do this and this begins to extend into other areas. I know that I am a more anxious parent than I used to be, worrying about their health more than is necessary.

Hi

Feeling odd this morning, heart is racing and chest has that full of air feeling, feeling anxious and not sure why.  Last last my heart didn't miss and beat but changed rate quickly if that makes sense, and it was whilst I was tensing the muscles in my chest, I have noticed that when I tense the muscles alot in my chest my heart feels weird why is this, is it just restriction of air in my chest?

Hoping it will calm down soon, is alright if I stay still but pounds and I can feel it adjusting to movement.

Got my anxiety management today, so should be good.  

Hope all is ok today

Kath x

Hi RLR,

Thanks again for your post and your invaluable reassurance that you always give me when I read them.  May I ask are you a cardiologist or heart specialist as you seem to have infinite amounts of knowledge in this field?  

As you may have already read in my previous posts my doctor is arranging for me to see my cardiologist in Bournemouth once again.  He will probably set up a 7 day event monitor as usual and hopefully reassure me that this new rythmn is ok.  I know that you say that what I am experiencing is essentially still the same as what I have always had but this 'weird' rythmn to me is definitely different.

When I get the 'usual' skips, ectopics, PVC's, PAC's I know how they feel and they are nearly always isolated.  I may get another one say after 20 normal beats or an hour later or a few hours etc but when I get this other rythmn I can tell it is going into it because of the first skip.  It doesn't feel like the usual skip, it feels very light/mild hardly noticeable then the following beat or beats are like tiny beats NOT normal then I will experience another skip and maybe another then another 'normal' beat and then maybe a proper PVC or PAC because there is the pause and the big thud that goes with it.

During the whole time of this happening between 20 seconds to a minute I can experience maybe 30 to forty skips or sometimes just five but I feel my heart has gone into a certain rythmn because the beats in between do not feel normal.  I know that I keep going on about this but that's what I can't get my head around, when you say these are just ectopics and I shouldn't get hung up whether they are bigeminy, trigeminy, runs or whatever I cannot stop thinking that this is DEFINTITELY different to what I have been experiencing for the last 23 years.

I am sure that being asymptomatic and having felt every kind of thud and bang going on in my heart that I would of noticed occasionally this other type of run of irregualr beats but I haven't.  What I would really like to know ( and I know I may never get the answer)  is why after experiencing benign 'normal' ectopics for 23 years would my heart start beating differently in this way 3 years ago and only after this time would this rythmn become as freqent as every day!

Sorry for the rant,

Your posts are very much appreciated

Best Wishes

Rich