HH please. DM having tests for unexplained, regular tachycardia (rapid heart rate)

[BallofAnxiety]

Hi

Just as the title says really, DM has been having lots of intense episodes of tachycardia. Seemingly coming on from nowhere, although she and my DF have been very stressed recently. BPM going up to 200 on occasion, with temporary sky rocketed blood pressure and palpitations. She's suffered with occasionalveryhigh blood pressure for about 18 months. Because it's intermittent and comes down to a normal rate without intervention, doctors so far haven't been overly concerned, but she's now decided to go private, as she's having several episodes a week and they just wipe her out.

She's having a heart scan today as well as having a 7 day ECG fitted and I'm so worried they'll find something awful.

I know nobody can tell me everything will be fine, but it would be good to hear from anyone who has experience of this, either personally or a through friend or family member.

Really trying to stay calm for her sake and also my DF, but it's so difficult. We're very close and my DC adore her. She's only mid - late 60's. It's so hard not to let your mind jump to worst case scenario.

Thanks for reading.

try not to worry. It's possibly just stress. Palpitations on their own are not always a sign of anything serious, other than anxiety.

Why has she had her BP checked before and so often? Is she going to the drs for this or doing it at home? If it's at the drs, it could be white coat syndrome.

My DM is much, much older and had the same thing with erratic high BP (200 upper reading in drs) but the worrying about it was actually causing it! She saw a consultant who gave her a good going over and said she was fine and had to stop taking her BP at home so much as that was causing the anxiety.

If it's palpitations often, it does sound like anxiety and maybe she needs to address that.

I had similar symptoms for several months before having a prolonged episode which led to a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. That's a type of arrhythmia, but there are lots of other arrhythmias. I'm not saying your DM has what I've got and I'm not a medical person. AF can just start for no apparent reason and can stop on its own, when it does this its called paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. My prolonged episode led to me being in persistent AF and my heart wasn't able to get back to a normal rhythm without an intervention. It does show up on an ECG. For me, it started when I was 62, had never had any heart issues prior to that.

Same as @Ecci but mine started at about 20. I had an ablation at about 25 and it’s been much better since.

I’m glad they are doing a 7 days ECG, I had to really push for this as the 24 hour ones never picked mine up.

I have ANVRT, which could make my heart go to 200bmp for hours