6-year-old with fast heart beat - should I worry?

[imaginaryfriend]

My dd is as fit as a fiddle, eats well, gets lots of exercise. She's had problems with allergies - asthma, eczema and she has a severe allergy to nuts.

Over the last week she's complaining of a fast heart when she lies down and keeps calling me in in the night. Her heart rate is going up to 150+ then it seems to ease off again by itself after about 10 minutes. I thought perhaps she was having a nightmare and waking up with an anxiety attack... ? Can you get them when you're 6?!? However it started tonight when she lay down to sleep and she's finding it difficult to settle.

Any ideas? Is it likely to be anything I should worry about? She seems more tired than usual at the moment, it was the first thing she said to me tonight when I picked her up. She's usually full of beans. She also wanted to go straight home where she would normally want a play in the park on the way.

[scrooged]

bump

[imaginaryfriend]

No worries about the thread crash.

I didn't take dd in this morning. She hasn't had any more incidents of racing heart and she's got a rotten cold / cough so I'm feeling confident that the sweating the other night was due to her coming down with that.

I am going to take her to the GP on Tuesday morning before I take her into school. I just felt that it didn't warrant a trip to A&E especially as every time we've ever been there we've come down with some horrible bug or other just from having been in there.

I'm really hoping I'm not being irresponsible. But my gut feeling tells me not to panic. Having said that I won't feel really relaxed about it until I've had a chat with the GP.

[scrooged]

That sounds like a good plan. It's very good that it's not happened again.

[imaginaryfriend]

Yes it is a good sign I hope? I've asked her if she's felt anything like it since and she says she hasn't. I'm going to continue sleeping in bed with her though until I've seen the GP and had some official reassurance.

[scrooged]

[imaginaryfriend]

Incidentally, when she had her major anaphylactic shock episode just over a year ago she was in hospital hooked up to all sorts of monitors. If there was any major fault in her heartbeat would it have shown up then?

[scrooged]

Not necessarily. Things change and they may not have done a full ECG with 12 leads which is more comprehensive (looks at the electrics) then a heart monitor (which just counts the beats)

[morningsun]

Hi if hope you ok
just wanted to say sunday am would be a good time to go to either a&e or call out of hours if they're good in your area
Its not that i'm panicking in any way on your behalf but she may well get to be examined by a paed if you go [defo if there was anything to hear in her heart/chest and it might be a quicker way of getting a proper examination done rather that seeing your gp[who ime often take the lead from you iyswim]who might not take it seriously,and who may not have as good cardiac exam skills.

[imaginaryfriend]

We don't really have an out of hours service unfortunately. It's either GP or A&E.

[morningsun]

i don't know..
i mean asthma gives fast heartrate[tachycardia]
a temp does too
that may be all it is as she now has a cough and cold,
but i guess she's had plenty of viruses before now so you must have been a little more worried than usual
when she woke up with the fast h/r was she out of breath?

[imaginaryfriend]

Not hugely out of breath but she said she'd had a nightmare in which she couldn't breathe and died. And I worried whether she'd actually stopped breathing and that had come into her nightmare or if she'd had a minor panic attack and couldn't breathe on waking from the dream.

[mishmash68]

HOWS YOUR DAUGHTER DOING NOW HOPE SHES OK

[imaginaryfriend]

I took dd to the GP this morning and she listened to her heart which she said was fine. She said sudden bursts of tachycardia in young children are extremely rare and seemed to think that dd had a minor panic attack and was hyperventilating and that made her heart rate go up. However she said to keep an eye on her and if it happens again she'll refer her for a 24 hour heart monitor.