Hi OP,
I also have a high resting heart rate and also have epilepsy.
For as long as I can remember I suffered from palpitations, not very often but a few times a week and whenever I was at the GP (for whatever reason) I would always have a resting heart rate of 90.
Then one night I went into SVT completely out of nowhere and ended up in Resus at my local hospital with a heart rate of 180ish. I required emergency treatment to try and get my heart back into a regular rhythm and apparently I was one step away from needing to be shocked with the de-fib. A week later it happened again, but my heart rate wasn’t as high, only about 140 and after a period of observation it normalised to my usual readings. I was started on beta- blockers to try and prevent it happening again.
I was fine for a few years but then it happened again and an ambulance was sent to me where I had an ECG at home. My heart rate was about 140 again so they allowed me some time for it to normalise, which it did, and so I didn’t need to go into hospital.
That event was about 4 years ago and it hasn’t happened since. I still have occasional palpitations but it has never
progressed to SVT. I still take a small dose of beta blockers three times a day.
During the time of all this going on I had numerous ECG’s and Echoes (USS) and they all came back completely normal.
I have also had a procedure called a cardiac ablation to see if they could identify in my heart where the palpitations and irregular heart rhythms were originating from but no set area could be detected.
I would definitely speak to your GP about it. I was initially given a monitor where three times a day I had to record my pulse to see if there was any consistent pattern.
How long do your periods of high heart rate for when they up at the 130-140 area?
When I had my SVTs that happened at home, they each took a good hour to normalise. The serious event were I was in hospital took about 2 hours to be resolved.
During my SVT episodes I can feel my heart rate pounding and thumping in my neck and it’s quite terrifying - that’s how I can differentiate an SVT episode from just a normal high heart rate from doing exercise etc.