Sudden heart racing and strange feeling over took my body ~

I'd like to first thank anyone who can give me some clarity and thank you in advance. Because I'm scared out of my mind right now.

What occurred no more than 45min ago as I was sitting in a class, has happened before. I had one of these attacks as I'll call it last year around October maybe? The one previously was 6+ month prior. They usually occurred at night.

Well not this time, and this was possibly the worst one yet. I felt like I was going to die because of how my body was reacting. It started with a tough time breathing. And not that I was struggling to suck in air, it was just like my throat or maybe the chest was constricted in some way, but didn't 'feel' like it if that makes sense. After a little while of the breathing problems, I suddenly get this odd feeling come across my body. Almost as if the blood had been drained out of me and it's just so difficult to describe what this feeling is. This feeling like the previous times, results to the next stage. And that is HUGE heart beat increase out of no where. This last maybe a few minutes( the max speed of it ) then it slows down big time, almost to point where I feel like it's going to stop since it's so slow. Then it goes back to a regular, but still elevated heart rate. I then feel very weak after it, I have some problems being able to speak as I feel so drained and my hands are shaking a bit ( I assume from the adrenaline being pumped as I am panicking of course. )


And that is usually it, I will recover, feel very odd like I just suffered a heart attack or something as my body has this feeling like I just recovered from some severe trauma ( which it basically it did in my mind ).

This time was quite worse as after the initial attack, and my heart rate slowed down, it started to raise again and I got the same weird feeling inside my gut almost as if it was going to give me the same attack again. It luckily didn't go as bad as the first one. After that I started to recover, still feeling odd inside and my pulse still a little bit elevated. I'm now at home 45min later, feeling better. My pulse is still a tad high, not much and I feel bit strange inside still, but I'm better.

Is this just panic attacks or anxiety? Or are these signs of something else? I wen't in before ( many years ago ) about this issue and my heart checked out alright and I've had ekg monitor once years ago that showed nothing. Things could show different now, who knows. But does this sound like Anxiety/Panic attacks or is it something else?

Any help to ease my mind, I'd so greatly appreciate it.

LivingWithSvt_95 said...
Do you get restless or uneasy right before you have trouble breathing? I would feel really weird(sometimes for hours) then before I knew it I couldn't breathe, my heart would race and beat hard against my chest. Then like you said it would just go away. Sometimes my heart would slow down so suddenly I would get a heavy feeling in my chest. The doctors called it an anxiety disorder and over the years I've learned to control it to the point where I no longer need medication. Don't just take my word for it though, you should consult a physician to make sure there isn't something more serious going on. But whatever you do don't freak out--it only makes it worse. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply.

I can't say I get restless, an uneasy feeling I can't seem to recall. I think the uneasy feeling I did acquire was simply from the result of the first stage of the breathing change. It alerts me that something is wrong. It's always sudden, some type of breathing issue where I'm breathing normally but it seems a bit more difficult or constricted, even though my throat and chest are fine. Then that odd feeling I discussed takes over my body, as if it's preparing for something terrible. It's as if you were to get a lot of blood drawn and you have that loss of blood feeling, sort of a chill and light head which shortly hits with the huge increase of my heartr rate. 30 seconds to minute later it drops down to really low just suddenly, as if it's going to stop and then goes back to semi-normal, but still quite elevated ( say, 90-100 and my resting is 55-60 ) for an hour or so after.

After it, for hours I will feel like my chest is bruised and still feel odd. Even right now I don't feel 100%. Feels as if my inside of my chest or heart is bruised.

I had hoped that it was anxiety or a panic attack. The problem is, I feel since it only occurs 1-2 times a year and the severity of it is so great, I couldn't possibly think it would be so easy as being that.

I have found something called Supraventricular Tachycardia

http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/tc/supraventricular-tachycardia-overview

"Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) means that from time to time your heart beats very fast for a reason other than exercise, high fever, or stress. During an episode of SVT, the heart?s electrical system doesn't work right, causing the heart to beat very fast. The heart beats at least 100 beats per minute and may reach 300 beats per minute. After treatment or on its own, the heart usually returns to a normal rate of 60 to 100 beats a minute."

This unfortunately seems right up my lane. I have a GP appointment on Wed. and will get a re feral to a specialist. I wish so hard this was anxiety or panic disorder, but it seems to severe and more on the line of this electrical system issue, sadly.

Hi Notasf_n,

Welcome to HealingWell.

Look forward to seeing your posts, anxiety and heart rhythm issues have plagued me much of my life. It's amazing how much anxiety and stress effect our heart rhythms, blood pressure, and much more.

Be well.

Shasta13: You've described perfectly what I wasn't able to! I've had this happen twice to me in the past two weeks. At first I thought it was because I was on a new medication, but now I'm not so sure. Because if I can recall, this happened to me a few months back as well. I see you haven't been back in this forum in about a year, but if you see this could you please tell me if you ever found out what was causing it?

And if anybody has any idea what it is, please message me. But if you think it's from panic attacks/anxiety don't bother replying lol because it is definitely not that.

By any chance, do you recall taking aspirin and drinking coffee or coke around the time you had these episodes?

I had the same thing as you described (with the addition of a full collapse onto the floor) and come to find that I had an allergic reaction to the aspirin which produces neurological symptoms. The caffeine then blasted the symptoms into orbit.

I found this out about a year later by taking Excedrin. Excedrin is basically aspirin and caffeine wrapped into a nice little pill and triggered the episode again.

Post Edited (bluscarab) : 1/28/2016 2:32:09 PM (GMT-7)

Slee17, just so you know, you have commented on a very old thread & Shasta has not been here in almost 3 years. This forum is a not a busy forum with many old threads & not many active members. You can click on a members name & it will show you when they last posted. By chance do you work in the medical field?