Tachycardia

[everymeeveryyou]

I started MJ after lots of consideration and the side effects I experienced after my first dose were pretty severe.
Really tender muscles on my upper body, painful to touch, painful with my clothes touching them. Really horrible and difficult to describe, certainly not DOMS.
felt generally exhausted and struggled at the gym. Significant tachycardia during training that took over and hour to settle. HR up to 160bpm with weight training and was still 120bpm 30 mins later.
Tried to speak to my prescriber but they were on leave so was advised to not take second dose.
However was a bit blasé and as the muscle pain symptoms had started to subside I tried my second dose last week, no muscle pain at all. However still significant exhaustion and tachycardia on exercising.
Resting heart rate usually around 65bpm, now approx 10bpm higher, not worried about that.
However even a gentle walk gets my heart rate up to about 130bpm and weight training makes it go higher. I feel pretty breathless between sets, which isn’t usual for me. Haven’t even tried to run as I know it will be sky high if I do.
My prescriber is now back so waiting for some advice from them but was wondering if anyone else had experienced this and if so, did it settle at all? Thanks

I had some tachychardia/palpitations at night a couple of times after the first 2 doses. It was similar to what I would get sometimes duing peri. It also raised my resting heartrate by about 10bpm around the same time. It's all settled down now.

Absolutely nothing like as bad as what you're describing. Although obviously I was nowhere near as active as you clearly are!

I haven’t experienced this but if you have a responsible prescriber I hope their response will be to send you straight to a doctor for assessment and advice, so I’d be inclined to skip the middleman and request a GP appointment as soon as possible.

Hi @VelociraptorsVelociRapping my prescriber is a consultant endocrinologist so am waiting for them to be back at work __this week. They have previously run a large NHS tier 3 weight management service in their previous NHS trust so feel they will be more experienced than my GP.
It’s weird as I am not feeling it as I have done with menopause palpitations. It’s a general feeling of excessive breathlessness on exercise that is more intense and lasts much longer than usual for me. That makes me check what my heart rate is doing and it’s sky high. But no heart pounding sensations or anything like that.
It’s certainly something on the higher end of the palpitations/tachycardia that is mentioned as a side effect. But if I am not exercising I would not even realise my resting heart rate was slightly raised.

@GiveMeWordGames Good to know yours settled, am hoping despite it being quite significant it will settle. If I have some evidence to say this may be the case I would be happy to pull back on my training for a few weeks but am certainly not wanting to drop my efforts long term and will not be continuing with MJ if that’s the case.

Understood @everymeeveryyou. As most posters on this board are accessing the drug privately via pharmacies it's pretty unusual for their prescriber to be a doctor, let alone a consultant, so apologies for my assumption. I mentioned the GP because they are usually the gatekeepers for specialist services but if your prescriber is able to refer to you directly to cardiology then that's great.

@VelociraptorsVelociRapping Not a problem, yes aware I am pretty unusual in the route I took to access a GLP1.
I had already lost 35Kg without any WLM but have plateaued for 9 months and after trying pretty much everything except WLM I wanted to speak to someone who was really experienced in their use before I made my decision on whether to see if they would help push me over this plateau.
Am now slightly frustrated that I seem to be someone who may be quite sensitive to the drug and it may not be an option after all.

Are you eating properly? Having seen women existing on under 500 calories a day with MJ it’s worth an ask

@castleclass Yes, I am only on 2.5 so on sub-therapeutic dose. Am tracking and eating approximately 1,400 calories a day, so approx 200 more then when I was training hard and only calorie counting.

Are you using electrolytes? Might be something you're short of causing symptoms? My DD had similar and also very low BP. She had an ECG which was fine and is having an echo on Friday. She's decided to stop the medication though as the side effects are worrying

I’ve had a few cardiovascular symptoms too - low BP, palpitations, everything feels quite high up in my chest iykwim, plus some pain on exertion (which I hope will turn out to be reflux). Seeing the GP tomorrow. I hadn’t really considered MJ as the cause because I’ve been on it for a year without any side effects and have just started reducing the dose, so currently on 9mg, down from 10mg. I’m due to inject today so maybe I’ll go for 8mg. I don’t want to reduce too quickly because I’ve still got 10 lbs to go in an ideal world, but maybe my body has just had enough of it 🤔

I’ve had an overactive thyroid in the past but blood test says normal right now, calcium and magnesium levels normal, awaiting a couple more results for blood tests I’ve done privately. GP is a last resort here because it’s so difficult to get to see one. Even with declared chest pain next appointment was a week and then they cancelled it 🤦‍♀️

I had muscle pain at the start of treatment, lasted a few weeks.

Just an update - saw the GP today and referred for bloods and ECG next week. She thought palpitations and chest pain on exertion might be due to low blood pressure. But will see if further tests reveal anything. I wonder if MJ is at the root of it, low BP and fast pulse are both listed side-effects. I don’t want to stop cold turkey but will try reducing the dose a bit quicker than I was planning I think. I have been really lucky so far with side effects but maybe there is a cumulative effect or perhaps some are more likely now that there is less of me. Iron is also a bit low so that might also be causative, but she wants to redo it.

I had similar symptoms when I first started. Good to get it checked out of course! But in case it’s helpful the muscle pain was only there the first week (.£has never come back). Heart palpitations and fast heart rate - definitely had this at the beginning, but once my body got used to a dose it subsided completely. I’ve decided to stick to a low dose, and have had no further palpitations, and resting heart rate is way way down now (at the start it was almost 100, and now 67).