High BP and anxiety

I suffer the same.  I don`t take a beta blocker like you as it made me worse.  My heart rate and BP have now settled.  I was like you three years ago and was eventually diagnosed with AF which everyone knows there is no definitive cure.  Now I just rest if it is bad or ignore it. I take ?indapamide for my BP and digoxin for everything else. after trying a wide rage of medication I could not tolerate most. 

I have had similar problems, I was admitted to hospital when my BP went up to 210/130 and I have a family history of death under 55 from heart disease so I was worried. My BP is now normal thanks to the Meds I am on and the fact I take them in the morning. My pulse has also at times gone up to 140, although nothing compared to my niece whose pulse has at times gone up to 200. We are both treated with propranolol for this.  We have both had loads of tests with no underlying abnormality and told it was paroxysmal tachycardia. My BP is now normal thanks to BP Meds.

I really don’t know about the shortness of breath. I actually don’t know whether it’s psychological and I’m gonna thinking about the the right bundle branch block! I sleep fine I don’t wake up in the night due to lack of breathe or anything. Back at the docs Thursday and he is going to look at my bp readings and decide what to do. Either carry on with the propranolol or give me an additional blood pressure medication too. 

Shortness of breathe was caused by your heart beating so fast, that the arteries suppling your heart with blood were unable to fill you heart before blood was pumped out again, part of your heart pumps blood to your lungs where your exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in your blood takes place, with lack of blood getting to your lungs of course you are breathless.

​Anxiety would only make things worse, flight or flight kicking in when you first start to feel you heart beating faster, and the more anxious you get the faster you heart beats, and you only compound the issue, and of course your blood pressure goes up in an effort to fill that heart of your with the blood it needs to pump to your lungs, again round and round, the more anxious the worse you get.

​My husband has heart failure or dialated cardiomyopathy, and I witnessed his heart beating at 23BPM, all of his blood supply to his fingers and legs was almost shut down, hands whiter than the sheets on the bed, but his blood pressure was still normal, body regulating his cardio system to keep his core organs and brain alive, amazing and very scary to see him so unwell, pacemaker installed later the same day when nothing else helped.

Actually, Joanna663, what you described was similar in a couple ways to what happened to me. I went to bed not realizing anything was wrong. When my eyes were closed, I started seeing stars in my head...and it didn't feel right at all. So I got up, and started googling what could be wrong. I knew nothing about high blood pressure at the time. While I was sitting at the computer, I got dizzy, and actually started feeling nauseous.By then, I knew that something was up.

I called my daughter, who is a nurse, and she came and took my blood pressure. Each time she took it, it went higher...probably because I could tell she was worried. She took me to the hospital, and by the time we got there, my blood pressure was 210/110.  They put me on some kind of i.v. to bring the pressure down, and sent me home the next morning. 

It was then I started learning about natural ways to bring blood pressure down. My daughter told me to buy a blood pressure monitor, and I started tracking the numbers. Long story short, my doctor gave me medicine to take "in case" I needed it. She didn't think it was a case where I needed to start a prescription for sure. Because I was scared, I took one lisinopril. One was all it took for  me to decide there had to be a better way. I had aches and pains unlike anything I had ever felt. 

By learning everything I could, I brought my blood pressure down, and it stays down to normal most of the time. But life happens, and sometimes kids stress me out, or just something bad happens. You just have to learn to choose beforehand to choose what are the important stresses, handle them, and let the others go.

A good portion of the time, lowering blood pressure using natural methods is possible, and even if your high blood pressure is because of genetics, using those methods does nothing but good for your body.

When you are having anxiety that is really getting to you, take deep, slow breaths breathing in to a count of 3, and then out to a count of 3. Do it at least 3 times. This is actually one way people in stressful careers can handle things.

I hear you when you talk about that fear of having a heart attack. Because my high blood pressure showed itself when I was starting to go to sleep, I was actually afraid to sleep at night. I'd sit on the couch dozing off, which was probably not great to be doing! Over just a few days of using some of the natural methods, my numbers started coming down. I was so paranoid that I was writing them down on a file on my computer. But it was so good to see the progress....actually reassuring!

I encourage you to try watching your sodium, eating veggies & fruits for the potassium & magnesium, getting enough sleep. These are some of the natural things you can do. I wrote an ebook about my experience and how I brought the numbers down because going through the whole thing is so frightening. If it helps anyone, that would be awesome.  

Sorry this is so long! I tend to just keep writing! lol

So after been on propranolol for a week. I take 40mg on waking and 40mg in an evening. The last couple of days tiredness kicked in. As in ridiculous tiredness. I can’t actually function properly at work. How come this has started after a week on the meds?

That's probably one of the side effects really hitting you hard. That drug lists tiredness as one of them, as well as lightheadedness and/or dizziness. There were others, but I don't want to make you start feeling things because of the suggestion that they might occur. the article said that this is your body adjusting to the medicine.

You might want to tell your doctor what's happening so he or she can adjust dosage or change the medicine if you think the side effects are bad enough. Or check into possibilities of dealing with things in natural ways, with your doctor's ok of course.