Comment by silisili
14 hours ago
Ha, same! The first time I noticed it, coupled with palpitations, I thought I was dying and went to the ER. I swear nobody teaches you how to get older, so everything feels like something is going way wrong. They treated me like a baby, said avoid caffeine, and maybe see a cardio.
And I did. He was an old guy, didn't seem at all worried. He said he worked in pro sports and a surprising number of people have it, including top athletes, try not to worry too much about it. It's been nearly 10 years and I'm still kicking so I guess they were right.
But to this day I avoid smart watches/rings, because I know it'll be nothing but anxiety inducing alarms.
Did you get an EKG? Do you have it documented somewhere this issue randomly occurring is your 'normal', that's easy to share if you have an actual cardiac event? The reason I ask is I have a sternum pectus, so my EKGs can be odd. My cardio said I'm fine, but I should keep my odd EKG on my phone to show any doctors if I have an actual cardio event. Otherwise they may end up chasing something that isn't the issue.
Good idea. I don't, but hopefully I or my wife is around to tell them.
What's funny, or depressing depending on how you look at it... when I told my dad the terrible news, he said 'oh yeah, that's been happening to me for years.' Like I mentioned, nobody, including my parents, seem to teach you about getting old...which is terrible for anxious people like myself.
Getting an EKG seems very prudent. I had one done for a non-heart related procedure, and afterwards was basically asked: - Ever have any heart events? Heart racing, palpitations, that kind of thing? - Yes, a few times a year I've noticed events like that. Resolves in a few minutes, though. - Well, your EKG shows a slurred delta wave. Sign of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Might want to get that checked out.
I did, and it was. Fixed with ablation. No issues since. Other types of supraventricular tachycardia can also be cured with ablation.
Minute I read the chain above I was looking for someone to point out WPW. It’s relatively easy to manage or cure once you catch it.
Finally a useful application of a tattoo
https://xkcd.com/933/
I mean, I had a similar experience with the old doctor not being very worried when I had the same symptom. But when I raised that I was worried about having a heart attack and dying he was equally unworried about that "people die, don't worry about it". And yeah a surprising number of athletes also die suddenly from heart conditions, so I'm not sure I find that very reassuring.
In any case, they did diagnose SVT or some variant. But it pretty much went away, it seemed that getting dehydrated and/or alcohol was triggering it for me.
I actually find a smartwatch that monitors my heart rate very reassuring. I have suffered from anxiety in the past and if I think I'm having anxiety symptoms I can glance at my watch and it tells me everything is fine before I start stressing and making it manifest physically.
Dehydration is the biggest trigger for me as well, as far as I figured out.
Not to be crude, but if my pee isn't basically clear, I immediately start slamming fluids until it is again.
I’ll add fatigue/stress.
A long bike ride after a stressful week and off it goes.
An interesting observation from a cardiologist to me was that cyclist have 5x the rate of rhythm disorders compared to to general population.
But… ‘It’s hard to work out if that’s drug induced or not’.
Say maybe lay off the performance enhancing drugs.