Hi and Welcome

If you've had normal tests then it is most likely anxiety,  the more anxious you get about these the more you can keep it going.  But then saying that I definately get worse nearer my period, sometimes it last's a few weeks and others a week.  I still have a terrible habit of checking my pulse occasionally, it is just habit now, but the week leading to my period my heart rate was nearly always in the 90's and I come on, on Sat eve and last night when I checked it, it was in the 70's the whole time, but also today I feel a bit not with it and light headed sort of, I'll have something sugary in a mo and I should feel better in a while, so I don't know I had my hormone levels checked and there normal! I haven't done or my stresses haven't changed that much, well I suppose they have as the children went back to school yesterday.  Also like I've said in previous posts nearer our periods or during our anxiety levels are heightened so we get into a vicous circle.  It also depends as well if your under more stress than normal or if something has upset you recently, or even if you have been eating differently as these can all increase the anxiety (sometimes without realising it) and cause more Palpitations.

Try not to stress to much, you'll be fine, we're all here to help and to get help.

I hope this makes sense.

Kath x

Thank you both for the replys.  Its nice not to feel alone.

The day before my supermarket incident our car had broken down on a dangerous road in torrential rain.  I had given birth 4 months earlier and was on a very heavy period.  My husband myself baby and 2 other children dealt with it all well, just another blip in life, the kids were brilliant and calm, we were towed home and all was finished.  We all went for a walk to our local supermarket the following day, when I got half way round and began to feel very strange, the feeling like when you are hungry and you get shaky inside.  My husband grabbed me a choc bar and a drink but I couldn't eat them.  I just had to get out and go home sleep it off and feel fine after.  But that was not the case.  After that I became a recluse and couldn't get out of my bedroom for long periods of time.  Gradually my hubby got me out bit by bit and it was only that I had to start taking my kids to school that I got out at all.

Things had got better over the next 6 years, but they seem to be reverting back to the way they were.  I am shaky inside again, the heart palps are all day every day.  I am scared to excercise because I don't want to have an episode while I am out.  I get blurred vision, adrenalin rushes and weakness on my left side to name but a few.

I am on venlafaxine and propanalol at the moment and have been for some time now.

The breathing is shallow and sometimes I notice I am holding my breath.

I hope this all makes sense and thanking you for your help.

If you were indeed symptom-free prior to the episode you describe, then it's altogether possible that could be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder if the event was perilous enough from your perspective. For patients, the original antecedent causing the emotional trauma wanes in the presence of over-riding fears concerning somatic symptoms that are regarded as originating from physical disease. In other words, these patients misinterpret the somatic symptoms of PTSD or other anxiety-related disorder and instead feel that the underlying problem must be physical in nature rather than emotionally derived, resulting in the presentation of the symptoms to a traditional physician who generally only examines and evaluates symptoms with regard to the absence or presence of organic disease.

In the absence of an identifying cause, patients become even more fearful and often feel something is being grossly overlooked because symptoms persist unabated. Patients frequently either change healthcare providers or estabilish relationships with specialists such as cardiologists in the hopes that someone at some point will locate the origin of their physical symptoms and provide a successful treatment. As I've stated similarly in other postings, this wayward process is analogous to bringing your car to the state highway building department for repair because it is riding rough on the road. Does this make sense?

It's commonly a very prudent and logical response to respond to physical symptoms by presenting them to your doctor. But simply because the symptoms are physical in nature, does not always mean that they equate with a form of actual organic disease or predilection for disease. The actual underlying cause for most PTSD and related anxiety disorders has its origins in over-stimulation or inappropriate stimulation of the body's nervous system, more particularly a phenomenon commonly known as the "fight or flight" response. In instances where threat of harm is imminent or even perceived to be imminent, this system engages for the purpose of preparing the body to repel the threat or escape its boundaries. In order to do so, many systems must come under stress and be placed in a state of excitement in order to provide the body with the capacity to respond in the fastest and most vigilent manner possible. We're talking about an innate and primal system which as part of the brain and body symbiotic function, has no way of actually determining whether a threat is real or merely perceived.

It only knows that when certain environmental features are present that invoke fear or aggression to a particular level, the body's fight or flight response will be engaged. Under actual threat, patients never give second thought to the body's physiological changes taking place because they are too preoccupied with the threat at hand. It can oftentimes be overheard by many people just recovering from a frightful experience to express sentiments such as "that made my heart skip a beat" or "I nearly passed out" or even " I wet myself or soiled myself." There is indeed a great deal of truth to these physiological manifestations and they sound very much like what occurs to persons suffering from anxiety disorder or panic disorder. Indeed, what happens in instances where there is no actual imminent threat to be acted upon, yet still present in the mind of the patient?  The body will still respond as though the threat is imminently present even though it cannot be readily identified. The heart can skip, respiration is increased, muscles are tightened, vigilence is increased, blood circulation is altered, etc. etc. etc., sometimes to the point that a threshold can be achieved because of hyperventilation and other sensory changes and a patient can sometimes experience a panic threshold. Neurochemical and blood-gas changes can easily upset the balance or homeostasis of the human physiology and bring forth an event such as that described. A sense of doom can actually perpetuate the symptoms such that only certain changes to enviroment or proximity to icons of safety from harm will cause a reduction to normal or near-normal state.

Sound familiar at all? So an event thought to critically harmful or imminently perilous can induce symptoms such that the mind of the patient becomes alternatively focused upon the most salient features of the aftermath, namely somatic symptoms and altered perceptions or beliefs with the ability for these features to cause frequent relapse even though the orignal event may be days, weeks, months or even years passed. It becomes incorporated into habitual patterns and patients become very sensitized to recognizing the onset, such that they not only respond with fear due to lack of control over the events, but can even cause their presence to appear through rumination and apprehension regarding when the events may or may not occur.

Cognitive therapy is very adept at providing patients with a workable platform for developing ways to unravel misperceptions and disruptive thought patterns, exchanging them for more logical and properly based assumptions or assessment of life around you. Remember that this phenomenon can occur to even the best and brightest of persons with sound logic otherwise. It is not based upon your general predilection, but rather your state of mind at the time of the antecedent or original event. You're going to be fine. We'll talk more.

Best regards and Good Health