Hi Angie
I am just about to go out to pick up little one so cant send a long reply.
But yes, I have had this before - many times my heart rate has been above 180 (not able to count it really) and it has always passed after about 20 mins to half an hour. Many times I have gone to hopsital or called an ambulance and we live really close to a hospital but it is always normal by the time they get here or I get there. It might be still doing 90 odd but they say that's okay.

Had it this morning in fact sitting at my friends house. 20 mins - it is normal (ish) now.

You will be okay. People like us seem to get this.


xxxx

Oh that is interesting what RLR says, because I used to be much worse when I got these episodes because I also would shake and feel much more ill than I do when the same happens now. I am still scared when it happens but not as terrified as when it first started happening, and I understand that if you get frightened when it happens it takes longer to wear off as you are adding to the whole scenario by your adrenaline response because of fear. These days when I have it, I get it and I feel quite awful and uncomfortable and have scarey thoughts but I also know I can say to myself this has happened quite a few times now and I was okay when it passed.

I wasn't in a scary situation I was just sitting down with two of my best friends, who both know well what I am like (one suffers from PAs herself) so I wasn't least anxious. The heart weird rhythm kicked in and I just had to wait it out. A year ago I would have had an ambulance on the phone.

Hard to believe but these things are not dangerous if your heart is normal.

Bead x

Well - guess what? I didn't develop any of these symptoms before panic attacks started. prior to that I had no weird heart rhythms. But I don't think it was a panic attack you had because I think they are quite different as I have both.

I don't think you needed to go to hospital because you are okay again now. As I mentioned many times I went to the A&E with this, and sometime the doctors were just irritated to have me there because they told me palpitations never killed anyone so I wasn't an emergency and why was I there.

(How I love being made to feel like an idiot, you can imagine!)

Are you feeling better now that the scare has passed - it might take a while.

x

Hi Angie,
you have been through so much just lately that your whole nervous system will be extremely sensitised & 'trigger happy'. It probably won't take much to set off palps. Also, the fear will just keep feeding it so it's really not unusual for it to last about 10 minutes. Sometimes I have had panic attacks that keep coming in waves for afew minutes or even hours.
Your brain is just wired to respond to palps with panic.
We know what you're going through, just try really hard to forget about it & concentrate on being as calm & relaxed as possible now. I can feel the anxiety in your post & really feel for you.
Hope you feel better soon.
Take care
love Seffie xx

Thankyou so much for your kind replies, i know that i'm not on my own in this.
Seen my counsellor today and she agrees that it was a severe panic attack and YES your heart can go that fast during a panic attack.  So perhaps i am normal after all, lol.  She was impressed with me today as i didn't break down, was close a couple of times but never cried.  Have done well today really, been to see her and then picked up the results from my allergy test i had done at the chinese shop - loads of stuff on it and things that i LOVE, not good.  Been the shop too and i was ok, just having a lot of dizziness today, quite bad, but am trying to cope with it and not worry about it.

Hi Angie,
you sound a lot better & more positive! I have often had a panic attack & couldn't see at the time that that was what it was, I have so often said to my husband it's not a PA it's something else. But when I've had time to calm down I often realise that yes it was. The trouble with PA's I have found is that they can come in many different guises & so you don't always recognise them. I think if they were exactly the same every time you would soon lose your fear of them. The heart stuff is what usually triggers a PA for me but they can also appear to come out of the blue too.

By the way, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I don't think that there would be anything wrong with you breaking down at your therapy session, I don't necessarily think that your therapist should say that's a good thing as surely crying is a sign from your body that it needs to release sadness or some other emotion. Please don't take that the wrong way as it's not really any of my business, but I think if you feel you need to cry then you should! Of course this is coming from someone who cries at adverts & when reading card verses in shops etc!!
Hope you're feeling better today!
love Seffie xx

The description you've just given sounds very like I was when I was first diagnosed with ectopics. My GP said it was like PTSS due to the operation I had being quite traumatic and then the shock of having the heart thing and being sent to A and E for tests. I just couldn't engage with anyone or anything and often had a sense of detachment from everything.

I once said to my husband that I wasn't the person I used to be (even though I'm a lot better than I was) - his response was that none of us are, we are all changing, we are all different than we were. I try now not to worry too much that I won't ever 'be myself' again - we are all affected by our experiences, so it would be strange if the upset we are suffering didn't have an effect on us.

Some changes will be positive, some negative - I am more  sympathetic now to people with stress or mental health problems, whereas I used to be a bit "oh pull yourself together". In a negative way though, I was always the sort of person who would walk a mile back to a shop to return the 20p I was overpaid in change - I wouldn't now, so in some ways I guess I am a bit more selfish. My aim is to get to a point where I am feeling well most of the time, I don't expect to be the person I was 3 years ago.

After not having had many ectopics since around April, mine have come back over the last two weeks. Can't think of a reason. I am also feeling them more in my chest too, which is quite distressing. I had them all day today and felt like crying - I've never actually cried about having them, even though it's been three years. It's just so frustrating when you feel you were on the way to getting over it all.

However, when I can get myself to think logically, I can see that this is just a hiccup - a bump in the road. This is the pattern of recovery though, I guess - it is never a graph where the line climbs steadily upwards, it is always up, down, up down, but still gradually going up.

Every year in October half term we go away with my sisters family - off to Cornwall tomorrow morning. Well, three years ago we went to Dunoon in Scotland - it was 9 weeks after my op, and 8 weeks after my overnight in A and E and ectopic diagnosis. I spent the week totally anxious, wouldn't leave the house without my husband or sister. Hardly spoke, took my mobile to the toilet in case I felt ill, printed off maps of the hospital just in case. Now, even though the ectopics are back - feeling them right now in my chest - I am still 100% better than I was three years ago.

I guess what I am saying is that you feel terrible now, but you won't always feel like this. There will be times when you feel bad, but it is possible to get better. There will always be setbacks, but thousands of people overcome anxiety, depression, PTSS - we aren't special, if proven techniques have worked for them, they can work for us. It just takes time and perseverance.

Sorry to hijack the thread a bit and go off on one. I hope you feel better soon.