My heart feels strange

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Hi

I've been to my doctors numerous of times and she has told me everything is fine with my heart. I've had routine blood tests - came back clear apart from a little high protein (she told me this was nothing to worry about). I've also had a ECG done and that was fine. But I'm not convinced... My heart just feels strange all the time - I NEVER get palpitations ever. My heart seems to beat irregular or skips beats. I guess it's like a fluttering feeling in my chest. Also I sometimes have chest discomfort, which seems to go into my left arm and back. Does anyone else have these symptoms and are they anxiety related? I'm sick of worrying!

Thanks in advance x

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  • Posted

    Hi Charlotte

    These are very, very common symptoms of anxiety and will cause you no harm. It is just the result of excess adrenaline in your bloodstream. What you are feeling is the adrenaline causing palpitations. Pain around the heart is caused by contracted muscles around the heart (caused by adrenaline). The pain of a heart attack is rarely felt in the heart. If you have been checked out (which you have) and found to be ok, believe it. You are experiencing the symptoms of anxiety, that's all. It can do you no harm at all, apart from feeling uncomfortable. Your mind, however, is also in an anxiety state. It will therefore be thinking 'catastrophically'. Everything becomes an emergency (in your mind) when in this state. Do not believe it. You are ok and will be ok. Try to ignore it. I have thought I was dying many thousands of times but I'm still here and there is nothing wrong with me. This is a very common experience for people in an anxiety state. Go and see you doctor for reassurance. They may offer you some temporary medication to help with the symptoms. Propranalol can be useful as it slows your heart rate down and sometimes this is all that you need to 'step out' of the anxiety state. Good luck and don't worry. This is a very common experience affecting thousands of people every day. It is distressing and disturbing but can do you no harm. Your heart is a very strong muscle and can easily withstand very high heart rates. Be kind to yourself as you are going through this experience. Look after yourself, get some exercise if you can, distract yourself if possible. This is not a mental illness it is a temporary overactive adrenal gland. That's all.

    • Posted

      Hi body i have same feeling from last 2 years and your answers gave me too much relief thx a lot
    • Posted

      I thank you a lot for this answer. I have been suffering the same problems, and I was very worried about it. I have had problems with anxiety in the past, and this made me feel much better about my problem. Thank you
    • Posted

      Hi athol thanks for that advice I like  Charlotte am having the samr symptoms anfd I have had tests done and they were fine I am waiting to have aart echo done but  think youuld be rg and its al down anxiety as I do get very anxious hen I have thtrange feelings xx
    • Posted

      Whilst this statement holds true for the newly diagnosed panic / anxiety sufferer or even 12 months in of this condition . You have explained it all very well, I to felt like this when I first got panic / anxiety, there are lots of reasons as to why people suffer from them, from bad up bringings, death of loved ones, food additives  etc etc, research has also  shown that it can be herediatary, in my case mine was caused by a snake bite and the small amount of venom interfered with my nervous system. Now up until nearly 4 years ago I have been panic attack free, I had suffered from them for 26 years with intermittent Agoraphobia. Now when it comes to chest pains , a person who has suffered for many , many years with panic attacks can differentiate between "heart " pain and an  anxiety attack, for the last 10 +  years doctors kept saying to me my chest pain  was panic / anxiety until I saw a Cardiologist, I had to see him for a cholesterol problem and he said to me I don't think it's panic that's causing your chest pain and prescribed GTN (spray under the tongue ) this relieved my chest pain but it would come back anywhere from 2-15 days, he explained to me that it was the small blood vessels in my heart going into spasms and they can't be seen by the naked eye or even via an angiogram, as the years went on it got worse and one emergency doctor actually put a name to my condition, Prinzmetal Angina ( coronary artery spasms )  , now depending on which specialist of mine you talk to at least 2 of them have a different answer to the others. Back in 2012 I started getting my chest pain with associated left side pain radiation, ECG was normal and because that was normal I was placed out into the ED waiting room while awaiting the blood test results, about 3/4's of an hour later a doctor came out to me with a nurse and said you had better come straight in with us, nurse had a wheel chair for me, I had a mild heart  attack (NSTEMI) since that day they no longer classed me as the panic / anxiety sufferer  anymore, If you are a long term panic / anxiety sufferer, do not let doctors tell you that it's just that straight up,explore other possibilites, if you know it's different then it is. Since 2012 I have had 3 NSTEMI's and have 3 mild blockages in all arteries, and the last 2 occlusions occured within 4 years ( 50 - 60 % stennosis)  and I have to stick to a healthy diet because of my original problem with my cholesterol, they found it to be the hereditary type ( familialhyperlipidemia ).

      Here where I am panic / anxiety falls under mental illness. In charlotte's case her doctor should of explored the possibility of 2 - 3 types of different angina , you don't have to have blocked arteries to have angina, especially the unstable angina or what they call  Syndrome X ( small blood vessel spasms in the heart ).

      Something to think about for all the long term sufferers of panic / anxiety sufferers.

    • Posted

      I agree with you. I have had panic disorder for over 20 years . I presented at E.D on numerous occasions only to be told it was probably panic. Oh and chostochondritis once. After 2 years of this and many times I didn't go because I felt foolish one day I presented because I was also feeling breathless. End result was an emergency double bypass. Panic though uncomfortable does not hurt.

    • Posted

      It''s helped me too, today my heart started jumping all over the place and I felt like I was going to collapse as I got dizzy. Feeling very tired now 😢

    • Posted

      I have in the same situation right now and reading your answer is a relief thank you so much.

  • Posted

    When I was young - in my teens - I was afraid of illness, contracting some contagious disease or even

    being caught in a house fire. After a broke my engagement to marry began to slowly feel better and less

    anxious. I'm elderly now and those fears never returned. Perhaps you should seek help

    from a psychotherapist to ascertain the underlying reasons for your anxiety.

    • Posted

      I can relate, I am actualy having these odd anxiety stuffs now and I'm only 13. I honestly got anxiety from playing to many Horror Games X3. I sometimes will have random flip flops with the weird heart sensation when I'm lying down; usually on the left side. Everything else with my life is fine, just that I should probably hold back on Silent Hill and Deep Sleep and Deeper Sleep for a while. I still got the anxiety stuff and I've had it for like 2 days but it's already starting to go away. 
  • Posted

    I just googled the symptoms i've been feeling this week and this page popped up.

    I've had anxiety issues over the past 12 months, the scariest thing was the first 5 or 6 months of not realising or believing it was anxiety.

    It wasn't until i had a holiday, that right at the end of the holiday my symptoms had almost diminished. One night i was having a glass of wine with my wife at dinner and said 'WOW!' .... 'I've just realised I haven't had any symptoms today'.

    I couldn't believe how great it felt to feel normal. To not have symptoms to worry about.

    Now i realise that anxiety feeds anxiety. And positivity helps to make you feel better.

    This latest heart feeling and weird sensations has come on the last few weeks. In the hope of being pragmatic I asked myself questions;

    Have i been working too much lately? Yes. Going out too much? Yes. Stressed about things like relationships etc? Yes. Drinking too much? Yes. Has my diet been bad? Yes.

    All things that i've noticed over the past 12 months that makes the anxiety worse.

    Being pragmatic helps state the obvious, help me to be rational... a quality thats hard to do when dealing with anxiety.

    Your body is a wonderful thing. It's just telling you to calm down, eat healthily, take more time doing the things you enjoy, get early nights, do meditation that gives your brain a rest from worrying, do yoga which helps breathing, read books, have long baths, do exercise that you enjoy which in turn releases chemicals in your brain that benefits you for the rest of the day.

    All things that you might think, 'yeah right, where am i going to find time for that?'

    You need to make time (not in a stressful way) if you want to get better.

    It's stating the obvious but it's what i've noticed works.

    I also talk to a therapist once a week, this was one of the best things i did to help releif the anxiety. The therapist will get you talking, off load, you might even cry, but the most important thing is you'll realise you are not crazy, you just need to be rational and calm your lifestyle down.

    I hope this helps you X

     

  • Posted

    Hi Charlotte, are you still experiencing these symptoms?I'm a 19 Year old. The symptoms are also happening to me, I've had this feeling for quite a bit now (3-4 weeks) it isn't exactly painful but it's a feeling that comes straight from the heart, right in the middle of my chest and makes me kind of weak and/or tired specially when I wake up and doesn't motivate me to actually stand up or do anything than just be on my phone... I've also had an ECG & CXR (Chest X-Ray) but it was all normal apparently, the doctor said it might be anxiety since they couldn't find anything abnormal in my chest/heart scans and all his questions relating to "Heart problem risks" were normal, also I had anxiety problems a couple of weeks before this so that must have been one of the effects... I got better since I started saying to myself 'Tests are all good, let's relax' and then just got out of control again in all of a sudden after a couple of days, I actually felt like I was going to die... It kinda hit harder, just to add in, it came back after I started taking "Roaccutane 20mg/ dosage of every 3 days" which is a treatment for acne.

    Now, I have felt an anxiety/panic attack, but it isn't the same, just if you're wondering... But it could be linked, I wouldn't disagree, but it's really weird because I don't think anxiety symptoms would stay with some one for so long, or would they?

    Hope this links a little bit to what you were having or helps anyone else. Anyone's opinion would be greatly appreciated too! 

  • Posted

    Hello, Charlotte I have suffered with my heart fluttering ever since I was sixteen and now I am 43 but it was only 6 years ago that I found out that I had a vitamin D deficiency .i know you may think that it crazy and how could that be the problem but I found out when I went to a neurologist for a different problem that I was having with eye Oras and migraines.The first thing he did was check my blood and one test he did was to check my vitamin D levels and he let me know I was Deficient and he wrote me a prescription for a high dose of vitamin D.After I started taking it I notice my heart fluttering had also stop as well as my eye oras and migraines.There has also been studys that has found that vitimin D deficiency causes heart Palpitations.You can google this as well and read how vitamin D deficiency causes heart fluttering.I hope this helps you and please get your family doctor to check your levels.you can also buy it over the counter but you may need a higher dose.When levels are low it can also cause body pain and cramps.God bless and good luck

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